Don’t quote Salter on this.
The only words that he actually spoke were “honourable defeat”. He could have been talking about the Toledo and Michighan game today for all that you and I know.
It's worse than that. The quote itself is laundered. Nobody is claiming to have heard it.
The punch line from this so-called story is delivered by a Drive-By reporter who heard this gossip from God-knows-who, who heard it from "campaign insiders", who herd it supposedly from Mark Salter who herd it supposedly from John McCain.
Who are these so-called "campaign insiders"? Even the reporter doesn't claim to have gotten this so-called quote directly from the so-called "insiders".
The entire story is pathetic.