Not So Straight Talk On Endorsements

ABC News Senior National Correspondent Jake Tapper, writing on the Political Punch blog on April 20, 2008, pointed out that McCain senior campaign adviser Charlie Black last month stated

What Senator McCain has said repeatedly is that these candidates cannot be held accountable for all the views of people who endorse them or people who befriend them. ... He believes that people who endorse you, people who befriend you, are entitled to their own views, but you are not held personally accountable. That when somebody endorses you or befriends you, they're embracing your views, the candidates' views, not the other way around.

To summarize: candidates cannot be "held personally accountable" for "all the views of people who endorse them or people who befriend them."

But on the 4/20/08 edition of ABC's "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos, the Repub candidate himself said of Barack Obama

I'm sure he's very patriotic. But his relationship with Mr. Ayers is open to question. ... if you're going to associate and have as a friend and serve on a board and have a guy kick off your campaign that says he's unrepentant, that he wished they had bombed more.

To summarize: Barack Obama must be held accountable for the views of someone who endorses him.

Is this the "Straight Talk Express" we still keep hearing about? Or is this a guy whose only extraordinary quality is doubletalk?