What did you think was going to happen?

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This isn't exactly a parenting issue, because I was a parent at the time. I was dating a woman who had kids. One of her kids, Kyle, got in trouble at school. He was being ranted against by his mother and I tried to be more helpful after she was done criticizing him. He had gone to the restroom with another kid in the class. That kid suggested making a mess in the bathroom and Kyle went along with it. Well, of course they found the responsible party and he got in trouble. The conversation I had with him went something like this. Me: (conciliatory) "Kyle, what's the process for going to the bathroom. Do you just get up and go or do you have to ask permission?" Kyle: (embarrassed) "You ask permission." Me: "Ok, so you go to the bathroom and make a mess of it because of peer pressure. Tell me, what do you think is going to happen when the next kid asks to go? They will see the mess, right?" Kyle: (awkward) "Yes." Me: "And, so they won't want people to think they did it, right? They will have to tell the teacher what they found." Kyle: "Right." Me: "And the teacher will know who went to the bathroom before that kid, right?" Kyle: (quietly) "Yes." Me: "Now, it was wrong to make a mess of the bathroom. But, what's more difficult for me to understand is how you thought you would possibly get away with it. What did you really think would happen?" Kyle: (even quieter) "I don't know." Me: (gently) "Well, promise me you will at the very least try to think more about things before you do them in the future." To my way of thinking, getting a kid to realize that they can imagine the future and predict consequences of their actions is important. The choices we make often have consequences that are easily predicted. Now, the point of the story. So, McCain has this TV gig with David Letterman. He decides he doesn't want to do it so he lies about stopping his campaign and heading back to Washington to deal with the financial crisis. But, instead of going to Washington, he really goes to do an Interview with Katie Couric.. um, who also works for NBC. Um, John.. what exactly did you think was going to happen? Did we assume that David Letterman was just going to say, "Ok, well, I guess he just wanted to do that interview instead. Oh, poor me. Guess I'll just tuck my tail between my legs here. Not like I didn't tell everyone to expect an interview with John McCain today." Or, does it seem more likely that David will lambaste John mercilessly during his show? Hrm, I wonder, which one do you think is more likely? Hrm, when John points out that McCain lied.. and told a dumb lie that he couldn't possibly get away with.. do we think this will look good to the American Voters or bad? Hrm, I can't quite tell. Maybe Kyle can help me out with this one. :)