Follow up on McCain's Ayers attack

Earlier, I posted a blog entry about John McCain's false attack on Barack Obama, in which he said that Obama had "countenanced" Bill Ayers' violent past. (Obama has done no such thing, and in fact has rejected and denounced them as detestable acts.)

In that post, I said that McCain had brought up the attack on Obama unprompted. My source was Jake Tapper who wrote:

On "This Week with George George Stephanopoulos" this morning, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., unprompted, raised the issue of the connection between Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and William Ayers, a former member of the radical group the Weather Underground.

Now that I've watched the interview for myself, I find Tapper's frame to be at best deceptive. It was Stephanopolous, not McCain, who brought up the subject of Barack Obama's patriotism. So it was true that McCain was not prompted specifically to talk about Ayers, but he was prompted to talk about Obama's patriotism -- which is close to the same thing.

Another important point: during a 23 minute interview, Stephanopolous and McCain found themselves spending 3 whole minutes -- 13% of the interview -- discussing Barack Obama's patriotism. During that exchange, McCain made several false statements, only a handful of which were parried by Stephanopolous, and not that effectively.

I'll buy you a milkshake if Barack Obama ever has an interview longer than twenty minutes with a major MSM figure where the discussion dwells on McCain's relationships with pastors for 13% of the interview.