When Pastor Rick Warren asked John McCain to reveal his greatest moral failing a couple of evenings ago, McCain confessed that it was the breakup of his first marriage. And that, indeed, was ugly. So ugly it alienated Ronald and Nancy Reagan from him for years.
But in April, 2002, McCain had a very different answer for roughly the same question. At that time he said attending two meetings with Charles Keating and the notorious Keating Five was "the biggest mistake of my life." And indeed that was a real doozy of a screwup.
Frank Rich, bless him, swings for the fences in this week's column and knocks another one out of the park. Truly, the man shames most of his peers. (Looking at you, Dana Milbank.) This week, he offers a full-throated assault on the myth of McCain the Maverick... and does so with no shortage of facts to back up every single claim. Astounding -- a MSM writer that doesn't bleat the narrative or vomit up pointless blather disguised as "analysis." (Looking at you, Mark Halperin.)
(Cross-posted from O.o...although the version HERE is longer, due to the "minimum diary length" suggestions)
Just a thought.
...and have a look at Wik for more info supporting the badness of Dasch for VP,
...Daschle is married to lobbyist and former Federal Aviation Administration official Linda Hall....
Democratic losses in the November 2002 elections returned them to the minority in the Senate in January 2003 and Daschle reverted to being Minority Leader. ...
Daschle has not made intentions clear as to whether or not he will run again for office; however, he has signed on as a Senior Policy Advisor [lobbyist] with the K Street law firm Alston & Bird. Daschle was recruited by the former Republican Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole. Daschle has refused to discuss his salary, but Dole, performing a similar role at the firm, has admitted to making in the region of $800,000 to $1 million per year. ...
On April 17, John McCain got on the phone with Georgia President Mikheil Saakashvili about Russian efforts to gain leverage over two of Georgia's troubled provinces. That same day, McCain issued a public statement condemning Russia and expressing strong support for the Georgian position.
And also on that same day, Georgia signed a new, $200,000 lobbying contract with Randy Scheunemann's firm, Orion Strategies, according to the Washington Post.
Today's WAPO points out the obvious quid pro quo of John McCain, Randy Scheunemann and the country of Georgia, and it reports on the conflict of interest that Scheunemann faced while advising McCain on foreign policy matters related to the former Soviet Republic and also working for the Georgian embassy.
Josh Zeitz is the Democratic nominee in New Jersey's Fourth Congressional district. He is running against Republican Chris Smith, who has backed George Bush's economic and foreign policies and who serves as the chair of the anti-choice caucus in the House.
Chris Smith says that he wants to run on his record in Congress. Unfortunately, there are parts of his record that voters may find less than appealing. We are going to tell voters about some things Chris Smith doesn’t want you to know about his record, like his opposition to ethics reform.
John McCain is a Corruptionist. For those without a dictionary, that means that he is a politician who has protected and upheld corrupt practices throughout his political career.
His dirty work is obscured by his carefully constructed myth as a "maverick" and his false mask of a reformer. It is all hype. His reputation is built on a twisted web of lies and protected by a legion of well trained sycophants in the media.
Every now and then, a clear portrait of McCain emerges such as last week’s profile in the Phoenix New Times by Amy Silverman, who wrote about the sordid career of the Senator from Arizona—a man she has been covering for years. It is a must read.
Mark it down as yet more data points proving McCain’s deep corruptionist tendencies.
There are many more. His campaign is run by lobbyists and McCain’s bends over backwards to reward the clients of his staff with statements and policy positions.
Alaska's IBEW Local 1547 commissioned the usually reliable Hayes Research Group to do a poll covering the period August 6 and August 7, of 400 likely Alaska voters. The results are surprising some:
The Obama campaign offices in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Palmer and Juneau are entirely unprecedented. The Alaska Democratic Party even offered, a couple of weeks ago, to help John McCain's campaign find an Alaska office - they have none - but they haven't answered the queries. Even more startlingly, yesterday, the Republican Mayor of Fairbanks endorsed Barack Obama.
Here's my newest video, focusing on McCain's relationship with Washington, DC lobbyists, using clips from the past 18 years, from the Keating scandal to present. The video is about two minutes long.
John McCain has myriad conflicts of interest via the many lobbyists who serve as his top campaign staffers and advisers. Leave it to the Wall Street Journal to find a silver lining in what lesser mortals would view simply as corruption as usual.
John McCain's top foreign-policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, is a leading expert on U.S.-allied Georgia -- and was a paid lobbyist for the former Soviet republic until March, in the run-up to what has become a major battle between Georgia and Russia.
Democratic rival Barack Obama's presidential campaign was quick to try to paint Mr. Scheunemann's dual roles as a conflict of interest after Sen. McCain swiftly took Georgia's side in the dispute, and cited it as evidence that Sen. McCain is "ensconced in a lobbyist culture," as Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan told reporters over the weekend.
But given the rapid escalation of the fighting, and the fact that Georgia is being viewed as a victim of its neighbor's aggression, Mr. Scheunemann's ties to the small nation and its pro-Western Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili may look less like a weakness and more like a strength in the first foreign-policy crisis of the general election campaign.
Nothing evokes strength like depending upon a registered agent of a foreign government.
John McCain was quick to support Georgia in it's confrontation with Russia. But until last May, McCain's current chief foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, was a paid, registered "foreign agent" of Georgia. Coincidence?
John McCain...tough talking Maverick, or lobbyist's puppet?
Senator John McCain's long list of Lobbyists-that's what. How destructive are his merry band of lobbyists? Well let’s take a look at a handful of our favorites and the most recent to be elevated to the status of dangerous warmongering neo-con lobbyist that ecourages war-Randy Scheunemann.
The minute the Obama campaign releases an ad on the involvement of John McCain's campaign manager in Ohio layoffs at the German-owned delivery company DHL, the McCain campaign is sent into a tizzy.
Instead of challenging the substance of Obama's ad, the McCain camp replied with McCain questioner saying, in effect, how dare Obama bring up layoffs where I live.
Here's a link to the televised version of the original McCain town hall exchange on that issue.
If this is the best McCain can do, his campaign is going to be sent down the long slope toward not merely defeat, but a humiliation of monumental proportions in November.
More below.
In the aftermath of the biggest news story of the week (sorry, JRE, but your dilly-dallying takes back seat to an actual war), we can sit back and judge how Presidential John McCain and Barack Obama really are when it comes to a moment of crisis. And it's not even close:
While Obama offered a response largely in line with statements issued by democratically elected world leaders...first calling on both sides to negotiate, John McCain took a remarkably—and uniquely—more aggressive stance, siding clearly with Georgia’s pro-Western leaders and placing the blame for the conflict entirely on Russia...
Obama’s statement put him in line with the White House, the European Union, NATO, and a series of European powers, while McCain’s initial statement—which he delivered in Iowa and ran on a blog on his Web site under the title "McCain Statement on Russian Invasion of Georgia," —put him more closely in line with the moral clarity and American exceptionalism projected by President Bush’s first term.
Time to call maverick-poop on this "celebrity" stuff.
Here, free of charge, is the ad I'm thinking of (from the DNC, or MoveOn, or some other group other than the campaign, since it's against Obama's grain). I'm sure some of you will have better ideas, but it's time to hit him where he lives (all eight of them).
Around the time of John McCain's switch to support offshore drilling, a set of Hess oil executives gave the RNC-McCain fund roughly $300,000. Now, we learn that two high-ranking McCain officials worked as paid lobbyists for Hess Corporation -- and one, Wayne Berman, lobbied for the oil firm as recently as mid-July around the time of the drilling flop!
And not just any hospital, we’re talking H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, one of the top 20 cancer hospitals in the country. This nationally renowned cancer treatment and research institute is paying thousands of dollars to lobbyists in Tallahassee, that are also registered lobbyists for tobacco companies.
After two weeks of ads peddling lies about Barack Obama, John McCain is now lying about himself. In a new spot ironically titled "Broken," McCain tries to resurrect his battered maverick image tarnished by his endless flip-flops and gutter politics. But as it turns out, the man the ad describes as "the Original Maverick" is telling tales again.
