Maybe the McCain campaign did pick up something from PMO during his visit …

Like, say, how to pick one talking point, and make everyone learn it by heart, no matter how contrived it might look when more than one spokesperson is quoted in the same article:

Like, say, how to pick one talking point, and make everyone learn it by heart, no matter how contrived it might look when more than one spokesperson is quoted in the same article:

“Charlie deeply regrets his comments. They were inappropriate and he recognizes that the candidate we work for has devoted his entire adult life to putting protecting his country and placing its security before every other consideration,” said Campaign Spokeswoman Jill
Hazelbaker.

Black told reporters in California exactly the same thing, according to the Associated Press: “I deeply regret the comments. They were inappropriate. I recognize that John McCain has devoted his entire adult life to protecting his country and placing its security before every other consideration.”

(Also, on the comments that elicited the synchronized regret — all I can say is ‘Yikes.’ And for the record, I’ve no doubt McCain – and his people – were genuinely shocked when they found out about it. Heck, I’d hope that this Charlie character was genuinely shocked the second he heard those words coming out of his mouth, but you never know. Politics can have a strange effect on one’s thought process at times.)