David Axelrod is John McCain’s chief strategists. He invents talking points for McCain’s celebrity supporters.

On yesterday’s journalists’ blah-blah on NBC’s Meet the Press, reporter Andrea Mitchell offered the rumor that for the Rick Warren candidates discussion at his Saddleback church, McCain “may not have been in the cone of silence and may have had some ability to overhear what the questions were to Obama. … He seemed so well prepared.”

McCain left Obama in the dust, so the Obama campaign decides that he’s cheated and Mitchell believes it enough to circulate the irresponsible rumor.

This is nothing new for Mitchell, according to Newsbusters.org’s Mark Finkelstein. Her reporting is frequently the repetition of Axelrod’s talking points.

Mitchell has said she likes the nuance of Obama’s pronouncements. It gives her the illusion that she’s some sort of intellect, as she reasons that most folks are not bright enough to fully grasp what Obama is saying.