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Classy guy.
What We Learned....
Obama wins by a landslide. LOL
Unfortunately I don't make over $250k, so tax away!
Rams played at the Rose Bowl in 79-80..I think.
Tampa Bay, please.
Thanks John.
This is the
first time that I've seen the horns this season.......
Cosby has got some hands. Great receiver!
Minnesota, please.
Thanks John.
MC is
a moron.
Congrats Red SOX!
The better team won. Fun series.
We're going back
to Anaheim...with or without the Red Sox. LOL
We're going
back to Anaheim.
Facts,
obviously aren't something you're interested in.
stocks4john,
May I change from G.B. to Dallas for this week?
Thanks,
Joe
McCain's BAD RECORD of NOT SUPPORTING the TROOPS
McCain's Miserable Record of Not Supporting America's Troops and Veterans
by: Brandon Friedman
Wed Oct 01, 2008 at 11:13:26 AM EDT
On Friday, September September 26, 2008, John McCain said the following:
"I know the veterans, I know them well, and I know that they know that I'll take care of them, and I have been proud of their support and their recognition of my service to the veterans, and I love them, and I'll take care of them, and they know that I'll take care of them."
This statement--made near the end of Friday's debate--immediately infuriated veterans across America and overseas. In fact, Senator John McCain has a very clear, long, and illustrious history of not supporting troops and veterans one bit.
Now, I've seen legislative examples, I've watched the YouTubes, and I've lived this lack of support in more ways than one. But now, for the first time, I've tried to compile as much of this non-support as possible into a single document--from a variety of sources--complete with links, quotes, and video clips. It's something that readers often ask me about, so I hope this helps. I'm sure there's a lot missing, so feel free to add more in the comments. But for now, I think this should give us a good start in exposing John McCain's abysmal of record of supporting troops and veterans. Here we go:
Senator John McCain's Record on Troop and Veterans' Issues
Voting Against Veterans
# Veterans Groups Give McCain Failing Grades. In its most recent legislative ratings, the non-partisan Disabled American Veterans gave Sen. McCain a 20 percent rating for his voting record on veterans' issues. Similarly, the non-partisan Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America gave McCain a "D" grade for his poor voting record on veterans' issues, including McCain's votes against additional body armor for troops in combat and additional funding for PTSD and TBI screening and treatment.
# McCain Voted Against Increased Funding for Veterans' Health Care. Although McCain told voters at a campaign rally that improving veterans' health care was his top domestic priority, he voted against increasing funding for veterans' health care in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. (Greenville News, 12/12/2007; S.Amdt. 2745 to S.C.R. 95, Vote 40, 3/10/04; Senate S.C.R. 18, Vote 55, 3/16/05; S.Amdt. 3007 to S.C.R. 83, Vote 41, 3/14/06; H.R. 1591, Vote 126, 3/29/07)
# McCain Voted At Least 28 Times Against Veterans' Benefits, Including Healthcare. Since arriving in the U.S. Senate in 1987, McCain has voted at least 28 times against ensuring important benefits for America's veterans, including providing adequate healthcare. (2006 Senate Vote #7, 41, 63, 67, 98, 222; 2005 Senate Votes #55, 89, 90, 251, 343; 2004 Senate Votes #40, 48, 145; 2003 Senate Votes #74, 81, 83; 1999 Senate Vote #328; 1998 Senate Vote #175; 1997 Senate Vote #168; 1996 Senate Votes #115, 275; 1995 Senate Votes #76, 226, 466; 1994 Senate Vote #306; 1992 Senate Vote #194; 1991 Senate Vote #259)
# McCain Voted Against Providing Automatic Cost-of-Living Adjustments to Veterans. McCain voted against providing automatic annual cost-of-living adjustments for certain veterans' benefits. (S. 869, Vote 259, 11/20/91)
# McCain Voted to Underfund Department of Veterans Affairs. McCain voted for an appropriations bill that underfunded the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development by $8.9 billion. (H.R. 2099, Vote 470, 9/27/95)
# McCain Voted Against a $13 Billion Increase in Funding for Veterans Programs. McCain voted against an amendment to increase spending on veterans programs by $13 billion. (S.C.R. 57, Vote 115, 5/16/96)
# McCain Voted Against $44.3 Billion for Veterans Programs. McCain was one of five senators to vote against a bill providing $44.3 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs, plus funding for other federal agencies. (H.R. 2684, Vote 328, 10/15/99)
# McCain Voted Against $47 Billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs. McCain was one of eight senators to vote against a bill that provided $47 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs. (H.R. 4635, Vote 272, 10/12/00)
# McCain Voted Against $51 Billion in Veterans Funding. McCain was one of five senators to vote against the bill and seven to vote against the conference report that provided $51.1 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as funding for the federal housing, environmental and emergency management agencies and NASA. (H.R. 2620, Vote 334, 11/8/01; Vote 269, 8/2/01)
# McCain Voted Against $122.7 Billion for Department of Veterans Affairs. McCain voted against an appropriations bill that included $122.7 billion in fiscal 2004 for the Department of Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development and other related agencies. (H.R. 2861, Vote 449, 11/12/03)
# McCain Opposed $500 Million for Counseling Services for Veterans with Mental Disorders. McCain voted against an amendment to appropriate $500 million annually from 2006-2010 for counseling, mental health and rehabilitation services for veterans diagnosed with mental illness, posttraumatic stress disorder or substance abuse. (S. 2020, S.Amdt. 2634, Vote 343, 11/17/05)
# McCain opposed an Assured Funding Stream for Veterans' Health Care. McCain opposed providing an assured funding stream for veterans' health care, taking into account annual changes in veterans' population and inflation. (S.Amdt. 3141 to S.C.R. 83, Vote 63, 3/16/06)
# McCain Voted Against Adding More Than $400 Million for Veterans' Care. McCain was one of 13 Republicans to vote against providing an additional $430 million to the Department of Veterans Affairs for outpatient care and treatment for veterans. (S.Amdt. 3642 to H.R. 4939, Vote 98, 4/26/06)
# McCain Supported Outsourcing VA Jobs. McCain opposed an amendment that would have prevented the Department of Veterans Affairs from outsourcing jobs, many held by blue-collar veterans, without first giving the workers a chance to compete. (S.Amdt. 2673 to H.R. 2642, Vote 315, 9/6/07)
# McCain Opposed the 21st Century GI Bill Because It Was Too Generous. McCain did not vote on the GI Bill that will provide better educational opportunities to veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, paying full tuition at in-state schools and living expenses for those who have served at least three years since the 9/11 attacks. McCain said he opposes the bill because he thinks the generous benefits would "encourage more people to leave the military." (S.Amdt. 4803 to H.R. 2642, Vote 137, 5/22/08; Chattanooga Times Free Press, 6/2/08; Boston Globe, 5/23/08; ABCNews.com, 5/26/08)
# Disabled American Veterans Legislative Director Said That McCain's Proposal Would Increase Costs For Veterans Because His Plan Relies On Private Hospitals Which Are More Expensive and Which Could Also Lead To Further Rationing Of Care. "To help veterans who live far from VA hospitals or need specialized care the VA can't provide, McCain proposed giving low-income veterans and those who incurred injury during their service a card they could use at private hospitals. The proposal is not an attempt to privatize the VA, as critics have alleged, but rather, an effort to improve care and access to it, he said. Joe Violanti, legislative director of the Disabled American Veterans, a nonpartisan organization, said the proposal would increase costs because private hospitals are more expensive. The increased cost could lead to further rationing of care, he said." (Las Vegas Sun, 8/10/08)
Lack of Support for the Troops
# McCain co-sponsored the Use of Force Authorization. McCain supported the bill that gave President George W. Bush the green light--and a blank check--for going to war with Iraq. (SJ Res 46, 10/3/02)
# McCain Opposed Increasing Spending on TRICARE and Giving Greater Access to National Guard and Reservists. Although his campaign website devotes a large section to veterans issues, including expanding benefits for reservists and members of the National Guard, McCain voted against increasing spending on the TRICARE program by $20.3 billion over 10 years to give members of the National Guard and Reserves and their families greater access to the health care program. The increase would be offset by a reduction in tax cuts for the wealthy. (S.Amdt. 324 to S.C.R. 23, Vote 81, 3/25/03)
# McCain voted against holding Bush accountable for his actions in the war. McCain opposed the creation of an independent commission to investigate the development and use of intelligence leading up to the war in Iraq. (S.Amdt. 1275 to H.R. 2658, Vote 284, 7/16/03)
# McCain voted Against Establishing a $1 Billion Trust Fund for Military Health Facilities. McCain voted against establishing a $1 billion trust fund to improve military health facilities by refusing to repeal tax cuts for those making more than $1 million a year. (S.Amdt. 2735 to S.Amdt. 2707 to H.R. 4297, Vote 7, 2/2/06)
# Senator McCain opposed efforts to end the overextension of the military--a policy that is having a devastating impact on our troops. McCain voted against requiring mandatory minimum downtime between tours of duty for troops serving in Iraq. (S.Amdt.. 2909 to S.Amdt. 2011 to HR 1585, Vote 341, 9/19/07; S.Amdt. 2012 to S.Amdt. 2011 to HR 1585, Vote 241, 7/11/07)
# McCain announced his willingness to keep U.S. troops in Iraq for decades--a statement sure to inflame Iraqis and endanger American troops. McCain: "Make it a hundred" years in Iraq and "that would be fine with me." (Derry, New Hampshire Town Hall meeting, 1/3/08)
# McCain voted against a ban on waterboarding--a form of torture--in a move that could eventually endanger American troops. According to ThinkProgress, "the Senate brought the Intelligence Authorization Bill to the floor, which contained a provision from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) establishing one interrogation standard across the government. The bill requires the intelligence community to abide by the same standards as articulated in the Army Field Manual and bans waterboarding." McCain voted against the bill. (H.R. 2082, Vote 22, 2/13/08)
# McCain Also Supported Outsourcing at Walter Reed. McCain opposed an amendment to prevent the outsourcing of 350 federal employee jobs at Walter Reed Army Medical Center--outsourcing that contributed to the scandalous treatment of veterans at Walter Reed that McCain called a "disgrace." (S.Amdt. 4895 to H.R. 5631, Vote 234, 9/6/06; Speech to VFW in Kansas City, Mo., 4/4/08)
# Senator McCain has consistently opposed any plan to withdraw troops from Iraq--a policy that has directly weakened American efforts in Afghanistan. Senator McCain repeatedly voted against a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq. (S.Amdt. 3876 to S.Amdt. 3874 to H.R. 2764, Vote #438, 12/18/07; S.Amdt. 3875 to S.Amdt. 3874 to H.R. 2764, Vote #437, 12/18/07; S.Amdt.3164 to H.R. 3222, Vote #362, 10/3/07; S.Amdt. 2898 to S. Amdt. 2011 to H.R. 1585, Vote #346, 9/21/07; S. Amdt. 2924 to S.Amdt. 2011 to H.R.1585, Vote #345, 9/21/07; S.Amdt.2 087 to S.Amdt. 2011 to H.R. 1585, Vote #252, 7/18/07; S.Amdt. 643 to H.R. 1591, Vote #116, 3/27/07; S.Amdt. 4320 to S. 2766, Vote #182, 6/22/06; S.Amdt. 4442 to S. 2766, Vote #181, 6/22/06; S.Amdt. 2519 to S.1042, Vote #322, 11/15/05)
# McCain said it's "not too important" when U.S. troops leave Iraq. This exchange occurred on NBC's Today Show with Matt Lauer:
LAUER: If it's working, senator, do you now have a better estimate of when American forces can come home from Iraq?
McCAIN: No, but that's not too important. �
McCain
McCain's BAD RECORD of NOT SUPPORTING the TROOPS
McCain's Miserable Record of Not Supporting America's Troops and Veterans
by: Brandon Friedman
Wed Oct 01, 2008 at 11:13:26 AM EDT
On Friday, September September 26, 2008, John McCain said the following:
"I know the veterans, I know them well, and I know that they know that I'll take care of them, and I have been proud of their support and their recognition of my service to the veterans, and I love them, and I'll take care of them, and they know that I'll take care of them."
This statement--made near the end of Friday's debate--immediately infuriated veterans across America and overseas. In fact, Senator John McCain has a very clear, long, and illustrious history of not supporting troops and veterans one bit.
Now, I've seen legislative examples, I've watched the YouTubes, and I've lived this lack of support in more ways than one. But now, for the first time, I've tried to compile as much of this non-support as possible into a single document--from a variety of sources--complete with links, quotes, and video clips. It's something that readers often ask me about, so I hope this helps. I'm sure there's a lot missing, so feel free to add more in the comments. But for now, I think this should give us a good start in exposing John McCain's abysmal of record of supporting troops and veterans. Here we go:
Senator John McCain's Record on Troop and Veterans' Issues
Voting Against Veterans
# Veterans Groups Give McCain Failing Grades. In its most recent legislative ratings, the non-partisan Disabled American Veterans gave Sen. McCain a 20 percent rating for his voting record on veterans' issues. Similarly, the non-partisan Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America gave McCain a "D" grade for his poor voting record on veterans' issues, including McCain's votes against additional body armor for troops in combat and additional funding for PTSD and TBI screening and treatment.
# McCain Voted Against Increased Funding for Veterans' Health Care. Although McCain told voters at a campaign rally that improving veterans' health care was his top domestic priority, he voted against increasing funding for veterans' health care in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. (Greenville News, 12/12/2007; S.Amdt. 2745 to S.C.R. 95, Vote 40, 3/10/04; Senate S.C.R. 18, Vote 55, 3/16/05; S.Amdt. 3007 to S.C.R. 83, Vote 41, 3/14/06; H.R. 1591, Vote 126, 3/29/07)
# McCain Voted At Least 28 Times Against Veterans' Benefits, Including Healthcare. Since arriving in the U.S. Senate in 1987, McCain has voted at least 28 times against ensuring important benefits for America's veterans, including providing adequate healthcare. (2006 Senate Vote #7, 41, 63, 67, 98, 222; 2005 Senate Votes #55, 89, 90, 251, 343; 2004 Senate Votes #40, 48, 145; 2003 Senate Votes #74, 81, 83; 1999 Senate Vote #328; 1998 Senate Vote #175; 1997 Senate Vote #168; 1996 Senate Votes #115, 275; 1995 Senate Votes #76, 226, 466; 1994 Senate Vote #306; 1992 Senate Vote #194; 1991 Senate Vote #259)
# McCain Voted Against Providing Automatic Cost-of-Living Adjustments to Veterans. McCain voted against providing automatic annual cost-of-living adjustments for certain veterans' benefits. (S. 869, Vote 259, 11/20/91)
# McCain Voted to Underfund Department of Veterans Affairs. McCain voted for an appropriations bill that underfunded the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development by $8.9 billion. (H.R. 2099, Vote 470, 9/27/95)
# McCain Voted Against a $13 Billion Increase in Funding for Veterans Programs. McCain voted against an amendment to increase spending on veterans programs by $13 billion. (S.C.R. 57, Vote 115, 5/16/96)
# McCain Voted Against $44.3 Billion for Veterans Programs. McCain was one of five senators to vote against a bill providing $44.3 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs, plus funding for other federal agencies. (H.R. 2684, Vote 328, 10/15/99)
# McCain Voted Against $47 Billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs. McCain was one of eight senators to vote against a bill that provided $47 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs. (H.R. 4635, Vote 272, 10/12/00)
# McCain Voted Against $51 Billion in Veterans Funding. McCain was one of five senators to vote against the bill and seven to vote against the conference report that provided $51.1 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as funding for the federal housing, environmental and emergency management agencies and NASA. (H.R. 2620, Vote 334, 11/8/01; Vote 269, 8/2/01)
# McCain Voted Against $122.7 Billion for Department of Veterans Affairs. McCain voted against an appropriations bill that included $122.7 billion in fiscal 2004 for the Department of Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development and other related agencies. (H.R. 2861, Vote 449, 11/12/03)
# McCain Opposed $500 Million for Counseling Services for Veterans with Mental Disorders. McCain voted against an amendment to appropriate $500 million annually from 2006-2010 for counseling, mental health and rehabilitation services for veterans diagnosed with mental illness, posttraumatic stress disorder or substance abuse. (S. 2020, S.Amdt. 2634, Vote 343, 11/17/05)
# McCain opposed an Assured Funding Stream for Veterans' Health Care. McCain opposed providing an assured funding stream for veterans' health care, taking into account annual changes in veterans' population and inflation. (S.Amdt. 3141 to S.C.R. 83, Vote 63, 3/16/06)
# McCain Voted Against Adding More Than $400 Million for Veterans' Care. McCain was one of 13 Republicans to vote against providing an additional $430 million to the Department of Veterans Affairs for outpatient care and treatment for veterans. (S.Amdt. 3642 to H.R. 4939, Vote 98, 4/26/06)
# McCain Supported Outsourcing VA Jobs. McCain opposed an amendment that would have prevented the Department of Veterans Affairs from outsourcing jobs, many held by blue-collar veterans, without first giving the workers a chance to compete. (S.Amdt. 2673 to H.R. 2642, Vote 315, 9/6/07)
# McCain Opposed the 21st Century GI Bill Because It Was Too Generous. McCain did not vote on the GI Bill that will provide better educational opportunities to veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, paying full tuition at in-state schools and living expenses for those who have served at least three years since the 9/11 attacks. McCain said he opposes the bill because he thinks the generous benefits would "encourage more people to leave the military." (S.Amdt. 4803 to H.R. 2642, Vote 137, 5/22/08; Chattanooga Times Free Press, 6/2/08; Boston Globe, 5/23/08; ABCNews.com, 5/26/08)
# Disabled American Veterans Legislative Director Said That McCain's Proposal Would Increase Costs For Veterans Because His Plan Relies On Private Hospitals Which Are More Expensive and Which Could Also Lead To Further Rationing Of Care. "To help veterans who live far from VA hospitals or need specialized care the VA can't provide, McCain proposed giving low-income veterans and those who incurred injury during their service a card they could use at private hospitals. The proposal is not an attempt to privatize the VA, as critics have alleged, but rather, an effort to improve care and access to it, he said. Joe Violanti, legislative director of the Disabled American Veterans, a nonpartisan organization, said the proposal would increase costs because private hospitals are more expensive. The increased cost could lead to further rationing of care, he said." (Las Vegas Sun, 8/10/08)
Lack of Support for the Troops
# McCain co-sponsored the Use of Force Authorization. McCain supported the bill that gave President George W. Bush the green light--and a blank check--for going to war with Iraq. (SJ Res 46, 10/3/02)
# McCain Opposed Increasing Spending on TRICARE and Giving Greater Access to National Guard and Reservists. Although his campaign website devotes a large section to veterans issues, including expanding benefits for reservists and members of the National Guard, McCain voted against increasing spending on the TRICARE program by $20.3 billion over 10 years to give members of the National Guard and Reserves and their families greater access to the health care program. The increase would be offset by a reduction in tax cuts for the wealthy. (S.Amdt. 324 to S.C.R. 23, Vote 81, 3/25/03)
# McCain voted against holding Bush accountable for his actions in the war. McCain opposed the creation of an independent commission to investigate the development and use of intelligence leading up to the war in Iraq. (S.Amdt. 1275 to H.R. 2658, Vote 284, 7/16/03)
# McCain voted Against Establishing a $1 Billion Trust Fund for Military Health Facilities. McCain voted against establishing a $1 billion trust fund to improve military health facilities by refusing to repeal tax cuts for those making more than $1 million a year. (S.Amdt. 2735 to S.Amdt. 2707 to H.R. 4297, Vote 7, 2/2/06)
# Senator McCain opposed efforts to end the overextension of the military--a policy that is having a devastating impact on our troops. McCain voted against requiring mandatory minimum downtime between tours of duty for troops serving in Iraq. (S.Amdt.. 2909 to S.Amdt. 2011 to HR 1585, Vote 341, 9/19/07; S.Amdt. 2012 to S.Amdt. 2011 to HR 1585, Vote 241, 7/11/07)
# McCain announced his willingness to keep U.S. troops in Iraq for decades--a statement sure to inflame Iraqis and endanger American troops. McCain: "Make it a hundred" years in Iraq and "that would be fine with me." (Derry, New Hampshire Town Hall meeting, 1/3/08)
# McCain voted against a ban on waterboarding--a form of torture--in a move that could eventually endanger American troops. According to ThinkProgress, "the Senate brought the Intelligence Authorization Bill to the floor, which contained a provision from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) establishing one interrogation standard across the government. The bill requires the intelligence community to abide by the same standards as articulated in the Army Field Manual and bans waterboarding." McCain voted against the bill. (H.R. 2082, Vote 22, 2/13/08)
# McCain Also Supported Outsourcing at Walter Reed. McCain opposed an amendment to prevent the outsourcing of 350 federal employee jobs at Walter Reed Army Medical Center--outsourcing that contributed to the scandalous treatment of veterans at Walter Reed that McCain called a "disgrace." (S.Amdt. 4895 to H.R. 5631, Vote 234, 9/6/06; Speech to VFW in Kansas City, Mo., 4/4/08)
# Senator McCain has consistently opposed any plan to withdraw troops from Iraq--a policy that has directly weakened American efforts in Afghanistan. Senator McCain repeatedly voted against a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq. (S.Amdt. 3876 to S.Amdt. 3874 to H.R. 2764, Vote #438, 12/18/07; S.Amdt. 3875 to S.Amdt. 3874 to H.R. 2764, Vote #437, 12/18/07; S.Amdt.3164 to H.R. 3222, Vote #362, 10/3/07; S.Amdt. 2898 to S. Amdt. 2011 to H.R. 1585, Vote #346, 9/21/07; S. Amdt. 2924 to S.Amdt. 2011 to H.R.1585, Vote #345, 9/21/07; S.Amdt.2 087 to S.Amdt. 2011 to H.R. 1585, Vote #252, 7/18/07; S.Amdt. 643 to H.R. 1591, Vote #116, 3/27/07; S.Amdt. 4320 to S. 2766, Vote #182, 6/22/06; S.Amdt. 4442 to S. 2766, Vote #181, 6/22/06; S.Amdt. 2519 to S.1042, Vote #322, 11/15/05)
# McCain said it's "not too important" when U.S. troops leave Iraq. This exchange occurred on NBC's Today Show with Matt Lauer:
LAUER: If it's working, senator, do you now have a better estimate of when American forces can come home from Iraq?
McCAIN: No, but that's not too important. �
Green Bay, please.
Thanks John.
OT
Thanks Susie.
You know the old saying, even a blind squirrel......
Take Care,
Joe
P.S GO ANGELS!
LOL...That's
how you consider the last eight years? THE SAME.
The same reason they
were scared of Bush,,,,,they're both idiots.
Tampa Angels Brewers Dodgers
Angels Dodgers
Angels 6
Don't pay any attention to her....
she's a complete whack-job. She twists the truth into whatever she likes.
BREAKING NEWS: McCain's Gambling Problem
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/us/politics/28gambling-web.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
McCain and Team Have Many Ties to Gambling Industry
By JO BECKER and DON VAN NATTA Jr.
The New York Times
September 28, 2008
Senator John McCain was on a roll. In a room reserved for high-stakes gamblers at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut, he tossed $100 chips around a hot craps table. When the marathon session ended around 2:30 a.m., the Arizona senator and his entourage emerged with thousands of dollars in winnings.
A lifelong gambler, Mr. McCain takes risks, both on and off the craps table. He was throwing dice that night not long after his failed 2000 presidential bid, in which he was skewered by the Republican Party’s evangelical base, opponents of gambling. Mr. McCain was betting at a casino he oversaw as a member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, and he was doing so with the lobbyist who represents that casino, according to three associates of Mr. McCain.
The visit had been arranged by the lobbyist, Scott Reed, who works for the Mashantucket Pequot, a tribe that has contributed heavily to Mr. McCain’s campaigns and built Foxwoods into the world’s second-largest casino. Joining them was Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s current campaign manager. Their night of good fortune epitomized not just Mr. McCain’s affection for gambling, but also the close relationship he has built with the gambling industry and its lobbyists during his 25-year career in Congress.
As a two-time chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, Mr. McCain has done more than any other member of Congress to shape the laws governing America’s casinos, helping to transform the once-sleepy Indian gambling business into a $26-billion-a-year behemoth with 423 casinos across the country. He has won praise as a champion of economic development and self-governance on reservations.
“One of the founding fathers of Indian gaming” is what Steven Light, a University of North Dakota professor and a leading Indian gambling expert, called Mr. McCain.
As factions of the ferociously competitive gambling industry have vied for an edge, they have found it advantageous to cultivate a relationship with Mr. McCain or hire someone who has one, according to an examination based on more than 70 interviews and thousands of pages of documents.
Mr. McCain portrays himself as a Washington maverick unswayed by special interests, referring recently to lobbyists as “birds of prey.” Yet in his current campaign, more than 40 fund-raisers and top advisers have lobbied or worked for an array of gambling interests — including tribal and Las Vegas casinos, lottery companies and online poker purveyors.
When rules being considered by Congress threatened a California tribe’s planned casino in 2005, Mr. McCain helped spare the tribe. Its lobbyist, who had no prior experience in the gambling industry, had a nearly 20-year friendship with Mr. McCain.
In Connecticut that year, when a tribe was looking to open the state’s third casino, staff members on the Indian Affairs Committee provided guidance to lobbyists representing those fighting the casino, e-mail messages and interviews show. The proposed casino, which would have cut into the Pequots’ market share, was opposed by Mr. McCain’s colleagues in Connecticut.
Mr. McCain declined to be interviewed. In written answers to questions, his campaign staff said he was “justifiably proud” of his record on regulating Indian gambling. “Senator McCain has taken positions on policy issues because he believed they are in the public interest,” the campaign said.
Mr. McCain’s spokesman, Tucker Bounds, would not discuss the senator’s night of gambling at Foxwoods, saying: “Your paper has repeatedly attempted to insinuate impropriety on the part of Senator McCain where none exists — and it reveals that your publication is desperately willing to gamble away what little credibility it still has.”
Over his career, Mr. McCain has taken on special interests, like big tobacco, and angered the capital’s powerbrokers by promoting campaign finance reform and pushing to limit gifts that lobbyists can shower on lawmakers. On occasion, he has crossed the gambling industry on issues like regulating slot machines.
Perhaps no episode burnished Mr. McCain’s image as a reformer more than his stewardship three years ago of the Congressional investigation into Jack Abramoff, the disgraced Republican Indian gambling lobbyist who became a national symbol of the pay-to-play culture in Washington. The senator’s leadership during the scandal set the stage for the most sweeping overhaul of lobbying laws since Watergate.
“I’ve fought lobbyists who stole from Indian tribes,” the senator said in his speech accepting the Republican presidential nomination this month.
But interviews and records show that lobbyists and political operatives in Mr. McCain’s inner circle played a behind-the-scenes role in bringing Mr. Abramoff’s misdeeds to Mr. McCain’s attention — and then cashed in on the resulting investigation. The senator’s longtime chief political strategist, for example, was paid $100,000 over four months as a consultant to one tribe caught up in the inquiry, records show.
Mr. McCain’s campaign said the senator acted solely to protect American Indians, even though the inquiry posed “grave risk to his political interests.”
As public opposition to tribal casinos has grown in recent years, Mr. McCain has distanced himself from Indian gambling, Congressional and American Indian officials said.
But he has rarely wavered in his loyalty to Las Vegas, where he counts casino executives among his close friends and most prolific fund-raisers. “Beyond just his support for gaming, Nevada supports John McCain because he’s one of us, a Westerner at heart,” said Sig Rogich, a Nevada Republican kingmaker who raised nearly $2 million for Mr. McCain at an event at his home in June.
Only six members of Congress have received more money from the gambling industry than Mr. McCain, and five hail from the casino hubs of Nevada and New Jersey, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics dating back to 1989. In the presidential race, Senator Barack Obama has also received money from the industry; Mr. McCain has raised almost twice as much.
In May 2007, as Mr. McCain’s presidential bid was floundering, he spent a weekend at the MGM Grand on the Las Vegas strip. A fund-raiser hosted by J. Terrence Lanni, the casino’s top executive and a longtime friend of the senator, raised $400,000 for his campaign. Afterward, Mr. McCain attended a boxing match and hit the craps tables.
For much of his adult life, Mr. McCain has gambled as often as once a month, friends and associates said, traveling to Las Vegas for weekend betting marathons. Former senior campaign officials said they worried about Mr. McCain’s patronage of casinos, given the power he wields over the industry. The officials, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on condition of anonymity.
“We were always concerned about appearances,” one former official said. “If you go around saying that appearances matter, then they matter.”
The former official said he would tell Mr. McCain: “Do we really have to go to a casino? I don’t think it’s a good idea. The base doesn’t like it. It doesn’t look good. And good things don’t happen in casinos at midnight.”
“You worry too much,” Mr. McCain would respond, the official said.
A Record of Support
In one of their last conversations, Representative Morris K. Udall, Arizona’s powerful Democrat, whose devotion to American Indian causes was legendary, implored his friend Mr. McCain to carry on his legacy.
“Don’t forget the Indians,” Mr. Udall, who died in 1998, told Mr. McCain in a directive that the senator has recounted to others.
More than a decade earlier, Mr. Udall had persuaded Mr. McCain to join the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. Mr. McCain, whose home state has the third-highest Indian population, eloquently decried the “grinding poverty” that gripped many reservations.
The two men helped write the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 after the Supreme Court found that states had virtually no right to control wagering on reservations. The legislation provided a framework for the oversight and growth of Indian casinos: In 1988, Indian gambling represented less than 1 percent of the nation’s gambling revenues; today it captures more than one third.
On the Senate floor after the bill’s passage, Mr. McCain said he personally opposed Indian gambling, but when impoverished communities “are faced with only one option for economic development, and that is to set up gambling on their reservations, then I cannot disapprove.”
In 1994, Mr. McCain pushed an amendment that enabled dozens of additional tribes to win federal recognition and open casinos. And in 1998, Mr. McCain fought a Senate effort to rein in the boom.
He also voted twice in the last decade to give casinos tax breaks estimated to cost the government more than $326 million over a dozen years.
The first tax break benefited the industry in Las Vegas, one of a number of ways Mr. McCain has helped nontribal casinos. Mr. Lanni, the MGM Mirage chief executive, said that an unsuccessful bid by the senator to ban wagering on college sports in Nevada was the only time he could recall Mr. McCain opposing Las Vegas. “I can’t think of any other issue,” Mr. Lanni said.
The second tax break helped tribal casinos like Foxwoods and was pushed by Scott Reed, the Pequots’ lobbyist.
Mr. McCain had gotten to know Mr. Reed during Senator Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign, which Mr. Reed managed. Four years later, when Mr. McCain ran for president, Mr. Reed recommended he hire his close friend and protégé, Rick Davis, to manage that campaign.
During his 2000 primary race against George W. Bush, Mr. McCain promoted his record of helping Indian Country, telling reporters on a campaign swing that he had provided critical support to “the Pequot, now the proud owners of the largest casino in the world.”
But Mr. McCain’s record on Indian gambling was fast becoming a difficult issue for him in the primary. Bush supporters like Gov. John Engler of Michigan lambasted Mr. McCain for his “close ties to Indian gambling.”
A decade after Mr. McCain co-authored the Indian gambling act, the political tides had turned. Tribal casinos, which were growing at a blazing pace, had become increasingly unpopular around the country for reasons as varied as morality and traffic.
Then came the biggest lobbying scandal to shake Washington.
Behind an Inquiry
At a September 2004 hearing of the Indian Affairs Committee, Mr. McCain described Jack Abramoff as one of the most brazen in a long line of crooks to cheat American Indians. “It began with the sale of Manhattan, and has continued ever since,” he said. “What sets this tale apart, what makes it truly extraordinary, is the extent and degree of the apparent exploitation and deceit.”
Over the next two years, Mr. McCain helped uncover a breathtaking lobbying scandal — Mr. Abramoff and a partner bilked six tribes of $66 million — that showcased the senator’s willingness to risk the wrath of his own party to expose wrongdoing. But interviews and documents show that Mr. McCain and a circle of allies — lobbyists, lawyers and senior strategists — also seized on the case for its opportunities.
For McCain-connected lobbyists who were rivals of Mr. Abramoff, the scandal presented a chance to crush a competitor. For senior McCain advisers, the inquiry allowed them to collect fees from the very Indians that Mr. Abramoff had ripped off. And the investigation enabled Mr. McCain to confront political enemies who helped defeat him in his 2000 presidential run while polishing his maverick image.
The Abramoff saga started in early 2003 when members of two tribes began questioning Mr. Abramoff’s astronomical fees. Over the next year, they leaked information to local newspapers, but it took the hiring of lobbyists who were competitors of Mr. Abramoff to get the attention of Mr. McCain’s committee.
Bernie Sprague, who led the effort by one of the tribes, the Saginaw Chippewas in Michigan, hired a Democratic lobbyist who recommended that the tribe retain Scott Reed, the Republican lobbyist, to push for an investigation.
Mr. Reed had boasted to other lobbyists of his access to Mr. McCain, three close associates said. Mr. Reed “pretty much had open access to John from 2000 to at least the end of 2006,” one aide said.
Lobbyist disclosure forms show that Mr. Reed went to work for the Saginaw Chippewa on Feb. 15, 2004, charging the tribe $56,000 over a year. Mr. Abramoff had tried to steal the Pequots and another tribal client from Mr. Reed, and taking down Mr. Abramoff would eliminate a competitor.
Mr. Reed became the chief conduit to Mr. McCain’s committee for billing documents and other information Mr. Sprague was digging up on Mr. Abramoff, Mr. Sprague said, who said Mr. Reed “did a great to service to me.”
“He had contacts I did not,” Mr. Sprague said. “Initially, I think that the senator’s office was doing Reed a favor by listening to me.”
A few weeks after hiring Mr. Reed, Mr. Sprague received a letter from the senator. “We have met with Scott Reed, who was very helpful on the issue,” Mr. McCain wrote.
Information about Mr. Abramoff was also flowing to Mr. McCain’s committee from another tribe, the Coushatta of Louisiana. The source was a consultant named Roy Fletcher, who had been Mr. McCain’s deputy campaign manager in 2000, running his war room in South Carolina.
It was in that primary race that two of Mr. Abramoff’s closest associates, Grover Norquist, who runs the nonprofit Americans for Tax Reform, and Ralph Reed, the former director of the Christian Coalition, ran a blistering campaign questioning Mr. McCain’s conservative credentials. The senator and his advisers blamed that attack for Mr. McCain’s loss to Mr. Bush in South Carolina, creating tensions that would resurface in the Abramoff matter.
“I was interested in busting” Mr. Abramoff, said Mr. Fletcher, who was eventually hired to represent the tribe. “That was my job. But I was also filled with righteous indignation, I got to tell you.”
Mr. Fletcher said he began passing information to John Weaver, Mr. McCain’s chief political strategist, and other staff members in late 2003 or January 2004. Mr. Weaver confirmed the timing.
Mr. McCain announced his investigation on Feb. 26, 2004, citing an article on Mr. Abramoff in The Washington Post. He did not mention the action by lobbyists and tribes in the preceding weeks. His campaign said no one in his “innermost circle” brought information to Mr. McCain that prompted the investigation.
The senator declared he would not investigate members of Congress, whom Mr. Abramoff had lavished with tribal donations and golf outings to Scotland. But in the course of the investigation, the committee exposed Mr. Abramoff’s dealings with the two men who had helped defeat Mr. McCain in the 2000 primary.
The investigation showed that Mr. Norquist’s foundation was used by Mr. Abramoff to launder lobbying fees from tribes. Ralph Reed was found to have accepted $4 million to run bogus antigambling campaigns. And the investigation also highlighted Mr. Abramoff’s efforts to curry favor with the House majority leader at the time, Tom DeLay, Republican of Texas, a longtime political foe who had opposed many of Mr. McCain’s legislative priorities.
Mr. McCain’s campaign said the senator did not “single out” Ralph Reed or Mr. Norquist, neither of whom were ever charged, and that both men fell within the “scope of the investigation.” The inquiry, which led to guilty pleas by over a dozen individuals, was motivated by a desire to help aggrieved tribes, the campaign said.
Inside the investigation, the sense of schadenfreude was palpable, according to several people close to the senator. “It was like hitting pay dirt,” said one associate of Mr. McCain’s who had consulted with the senator’s office on the investigation. “And face it — McCain and Weaver were maniacal about Ralph Reed and Norquist. They were sticking little pins in dolls because those guys had cost him South Carolina.”
Down on the Coushattas reservation, bills related to the investigation kept coming. After firing Mr. Abramoff, the tribe hired Kent Hance, a lawyer and former Texas congressman who said he had been friends with Mr. McCain since the 1980s.
David Sickey, the tribe’s vice chairman, said he was “dumbfounded” over the bills submitted by Mr. Hance’s firm, Hance Scarborough, which had been hired by Mr. Sickey’s predecessors.
“The very thing we were fighting seemed to be happening all over again — these absurd amounts of money being paid,” Mr. Sickey said.
Mr. Hance’s firm billed the tribe nearly $1.3 million over 11 months in legal and political consulting fees, records show. But Mr. Sickey said that the billing statements offered only vague explanations for services and that he could not point to any tangible results. Two consultants, for instance, were paid to fight the expansion of gambling in Texas — even though it was unlikely given that the governor there opposed any such prospect, Mr. Sickey said.
Mr. Hance and Jay B. Stewart, the firm’s managing partner, defended their team’s work, saying they successfully steered the tribe through a difficult period. “We did an outstanding job for them,” Mr. Hance said. “When we told them our bill was going to be $100,000 a month, they thought we were cheap. Mr. Abramoff had charged them $1 million a month.”
The firm’s fees covered the services of Mr. Fletcher, who served as the tribe’s spokesman. Records also show that Mr. Hance had Mr. Weaver — who was serving as Mr. McCain’s chief strategist — put on the tribe’s payroll from February to May 2005.
It is not precisely clear what role Mr. Weaver played for his $100,000 fee.
Mr. Stewart said Mr. Weaver was hired because “he had a lot of experience with the Senate, especially the new chairman, John McCain.” The Hance firm told the tribe in a letter that Mr. Weaver was hired to provide “representation for the tribe before the U.S. Senate.”
But Mr. Weaver never registered to lobby on the issue, and he has another explanation for his work.
“The Hance law firm retained me to assist them and their client in developing an aggressive crisis management and communications strategy,” Mr. Weaver said. “At no point was I asked by Kent Hance or anyone associated with him to set up meetings with anyone in or outside of government to discuss this, and if asked I would have summarily declined to do so.”
In June 2005, the tribe informed Mr. Hance that his services were no longer needed.
Change in Tone
After the Abramoff scandal, Mr. McCain stopped taking campaign donations from tribes. Some American Indians were offended, especially since Mr. McCain continued to accept money from the tribes’ lobbyists.
Resentment in Indian Country mounted as Mr. McCain, who was preparing for another White House run, singled out the growth in tribal gambling as one of three national issues that were “out of control.” (The others were federal spending and illegal immigration.)
Franklin Ducheneaux, an aide to Morris Udall who helped draft the 1988 Indian gambling law, said that position ran contrary to Mr. McCain’s record. “What did he think? That Congress intended for the tribes to be only somewhat successful?” Mr. Ducheneaux said.
Mr. McCain began taking a broad look at whether the laws were sufficient to oversee the growing industry. His campaign said that the growth had put “considerable stress” on regulators and Mr. McCain held hearings on whether the federal government needed more oversight power.
An opportunity to restrain the industry came in the spring of 2005, when a small tribe in Connecticut set off a political battle. The group, the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation, had won federal recognition in 2004 after producing voluminous documentation tracing its roots.
The tribe wanted to build Connecticut’s third casino, which would compete with Foxwoods and another, the Mohegan Sun. Facing public opposition on the proposed casino, members of the Connecticut political establishment — many of whom had received large Pequot and Mohegan campaign donations — swung into action.
Connecticut officials claimed that a genealogical review by the Bureau of Indian Affairs was flawed, and that the Schaghticoke was not a tribe.
The tribe’s opponents, led by the Washington lobbying firm Barbour Griffith & Rogers, turned to Mr. McCain’s committee. It was a full-circle moment for the senator, who had helped the Pequots gain tribal recognition in the 1980s despite concerns about their legitimacy.
Now, Mr. McCain was doing a favor for allies in the Connecticut delegation, including Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, a close friend, according to two former Congressional aides. “It was one of those collegial deals,” said one of the aides, who worked for Mr. McCain.
Barbour Griffith & Rogers wanted Mr. McCain to hold a hearing that would show that the Bureau of Indian Affairs was “broken,” said Bradley A. Blakeman, who was a lobbyist for the firm at the time.
“It was our hope that the hearing would shed light on the fact that the bureau had not followed their rules and had improperly granted recognition to the Schaghticoke,” Mr. Blakeman said. “And that the bureau would revisit the issue and follow their rules.”
Mr. McCain’s staff helped that effort by offering strategic advice.
His staff told a lobbyist for the firm that the Indian Affairs Committee “would love to receive a letter” from the Connecticut governor requesting a hearing, according to an e-mail exchange, and offered “guidance on what the most effective tone and approach” would be in the letter.
On May 11, 2005, Mr. McCain held a hearing billed as a general “oversight hearing on federal recognition of Indian tribes.” But nearly all the witnesses were Schaghticoke opponents who portrayed the tribe as imposters.
Mr. McCain set the tone: “The role that gaming and its nontribal backers have played in the recognition process has increased perceptions that it is unfair, if not corrupt.”
Chief Richard F. Velky of the Schaghticokes found himself facing off against the governor and most of the state’s congressional delegation. “The deck was stacked against us,” Mr. Velky said. “They were given lots of time. I was given five minutes.”
He had always believed Mr. McCain “to be an honest and fair man,” Mr. Velky said, “but this didn’t make me feel that good.”
Mr. Velky said he felt worse when the e-mail messages between the tribe’s opponents and Mr. McCain’s staff surfaced in a federal lawsuit. “Is there a letter telling me how to address the senator to give me the best shot?” Mr. Velky asked. “No, there is not.”
After the hearing, Pablo E. Carrillo, who was Mr. McCain’s chief Abramoff investigator at the time, wrote to a Barbour Griffith & Rogers lobbyist, Brant Imperatore. “Your client’s side definitely got a good hearing record,” Mr. Carillo wrote, adding “you probably have a good sense” on where Mr. McCain “is headed on this.”
“Well done!” he added.
Cynthia Shaw, a Republican counsel to the committee from 2005 to 2007, said Mr. McCain made decisions based on merit, not special interests. “Everybody got a meeting who asked for one,” Ms. Shaw said, “whether you were represented by counsel or by a lobbyist — or regardless of which lobbyist.”
Mr. McCain’s campaign defended the senator’s handling of the Schaghticoke case, saying no staff member acted improperly. The campaign said the session was part of normal committee business and the notion that Mr. McCain was intending to help Congressional colleagues defeat the tribe was “absolutely false.”
It added that the senator’s commitment to Indian sovereignty “remains as strong as ever.”
Within months of the May 2005 hearing, the Bureau of Indian Affairs took the rare step of rescinding the Schaghticokes’ recognition. A federal court recently rejected the tribe’s claim that the reversal was politically motivated.
Making an Exception
That spring of 2005, as the Schaghticokes went down to defeat in the East, another tribe in the West squared off against Mr. McCain with its bid to construct a gambling emporium in California. The stakes were similar, but the outcome would be far different.
The tribe’s plan to build a casino on a former Navy base just outside San Francisco represented a trend rippling across the country: American Indians seeking to build casinos near population centers, far from their reservations.
The practice, known as “off-reservation shopping,” stemmed from the 1988 Indian gambling law, which included exceptions allowing some casinos to be built outside tribal lands. When Mr. McCain began his second stint as chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee three years ago, Las Vegas pressed him to revisit the exceptions he had helped create, according to Sig Rogich, the Republican fund-raiser from Nevada.
“We told him this off-reservation shopping had to stop,” Mr. Rogich said. “It was no secret that the gaming industry, as well as many potentially affected communities in other states, voiced opposition to the practice.”
In the spring of 2005, Mr. McCain announced he was planning a sweeping overhaul of Indian gambling laws, including limiting off-reservation casinos. His campaign said Las Vegas had nothing to do with it. In a 2005 interview with The Oregonian, Mr. McCain said that if Congress did not act, “soon every Indian tribe is going to have a casino in downtown, metropolitan areas.”
Prospects for the proposed California project did not look promising. Then the tribe, the Guidiville Band of Pomo Indians, hired a lobbyist based in Phoenix named Wes Gullett.
Mr. Gullett, who had never represented tribes before Congress, had known Mr. McCain since the early 1980s. Mr. Gullett met his wife while they were working in Mr. McCain’s Washington office. He subsequently managed Mr. McCain’s 1992 Senate campaign and served as a top aide to his 2000 presidential campaign. Their friendship went beyond politics. When Mr. McCain’s wife, Cindy, brought two infants in need of medical treatment back to Arizona from Bangladesh, the Gulletts adopted one baby and the McCains the other. The two men also liked to take weekend trips to Las Vegas.
Another of Mr. McCain’s close friends, former Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, was a major investor in the Guidivilles’ proposed casino. Mr. Cohen, who did not return calls, was best man at Mr. McCain’s 1980 wedding.
Scott Crowell, lawyer for the Guidivilles, said Mr. Gullett was hired to ensure that Mr. McCain’s overhaul of the Indian gambling laws did not harm the tribe.
Mr. Gullett said he never talked to Mr. McCain about the legislation. “If you are hired directly to lobby John McCain, you are not going to be effective,” he said. Mr. Gullett said he only helped prepare the testimony of the tribe’s administrator, Walter Gray, who was invited to plead his case before Mr. McCain’s committee in July 2005. Mr. Gullett said he advised Mr. Gray in a series of conference calls.
On disclosure forms filed with the Senate, however, Mr. Gullett stated that he was not hired until November, long after Mr. Gray’s testimony. Mr. Gullett said the late filing might have been “a mistake, but it was inadvertent.” Steve Hart, a former lawyer for the Guidivilles, backed up Mr. Gullett’s contention that he had guided Mr. Gray on his July testimony.
When asked whether Mr. Gullett had helped him, Mr. Gray responded, “I’ve never met the man and couldn’t tell you anything about him.”
On Nov. 18, 2005, when Mr. McCain introduced his promised legislation overhauling the Indian gambling law, he left largely intact a provision that the Guidivilles needed for their casino. Mr. McCain’s campaign declined to answer whether the senator spoke with Mr. Gullett or Mr. Cohen about the project. In the end, Mr. McCain’s bill died, largely because Indian gambling interests fought back. But the Department of Interior picked up where Mr. McCain left off, effectively doing through regulations what he had hoped to accomplish legislatively. Carl Artman, who served as the Interior Department’s assistant secretary of Indian Affairs until May, said Mr. McCain pushed him to rewrite the off-reservation rules. “It became one of my top priorities because Senator McCain made it clear it was one of his top priorities,” he said.
The new guidelines were issued on Jan. 4. As a result, the casino applications of 11 tribes were rejected. The Guidivilles were not among them.
-Kitty Bennett and Griff Palmer contributed to reporting
I know, I know all media
is liberal until they say something that suits you then your screaming at the top of your lungs....cut & paste, cut & paste.
BREAKING NEWS: McCain's Gambling Problem
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/us/politics/28gambling-web.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
McCain and Team Have Many Ties to Gambling Industry
By JO BECKER and DON VAN NATTA Jr.
The New York Times
September 28, 2008
Senator John McCain was on a roll. In a room reserved for high-stakes gamblers at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut, he tossed $100 chips around a hot craps table. When the marathon session ended around 2:30 a.m., the Arizona senator and his entourage emerged with thousands of dollars in winnings.
A lifelong gambler, Mr. McCain takes risks, both on and off the craps table. He was throwing dice that night not long after his failed 2000 presidential bid, in which he was skewered by the Republican Party’s evangelical base, opponents of gambling. Mr. McCain was betting at a casino he oversaw as a member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, and he was doing so with the lobbyist who represents that casino, according to three associates of Mr. McCain.
The visit had been arranged by the lobbyist, Scott Reed, who works for the Mashantucket Pequot, a tribe that has contributed heavily to Mr. McCain’s campaigns and built Foxwoods into the world’s second-largest casino. Joining them was Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s current campaign manager. Their night of good fortune epitomized not just Mr. McCain’s affection for gambling, but also the close relationship he has built with the gambling industry and its lobbyists during his 25-year career in Congress.
As a two-time chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, Mr. McCain has done more than any other member of Congress to shape the laws governing America’s casinos, helping to transform the once-sleepy Indian gambling business into a $26-billion-a-year behemoth with 423 casinos across the country. He has won praise as a champion of economic development and self-governance on reservations.
“One of the founding fathers of Indian gaming” is what Steven Light, a University of North Dakota professor and a leading Indian gambling expert, called Mr. McCain.
As factions of the ferociously competitive gambling industry have vied for an edge, they have found it advantageous to cultivate a relationship with Mr. McCain or hire someone who has one, according to an examination based on more than 70 interviews and thousands of pages of documents.
Mr. McCain portrays himself as a Washington maverick unswayed by special interests, referring recently to lobbyists as “birds of prey.” Yet in his current campaign, more than 40 fund-raisers and top advisers have lobbied or worked for an array of gambling interests — including tribal and Las Vegas casinos, lottery companies and online poker purveyors.
When rules being considered by Congress threatened a California tribe’s planned casino in 2005, Mr. McCain helped spare the tribe. Its lobbyist, who had no prior experience in the gambling industry, had a nearly 20-year friendship with Mr. McCain.
In Connecticut that year, when a tribe was looking to open the state’s third casino, staff members on the Indian Affairs Committee provided guidance to lobbyists representing those fighting the casino, e-mail messages and interviews show. The proposed casino, which would have cut into the Pequots’ market share, was opposed by Mr. McCain’s colleagues in Connecticut.
Mr. McCain declined to be interviewed. In written answers to questions, his campaign staff said he was “justifiably proud” of his record on regulating Indian gambling. “Senator McCain has taken positions on policy issues because he believed they are in the public interest,” the campaign said.
Mr. McCain’s spokesman, Tucker Bounds, would not discuss the senator’s night of gambling at Foxwoods, saying: “Your paper has repeatedly attempted to insinuate impropriety on the part of Senator McCain where none exists — and it reveals that your publication is desperately willing to gamble away what little credibility it still has.”
Over his career, Mr. McCain has taken on special interests, like big tobacco, and angered the capital’s powerbrokers by promoting campaign finance reform and pushing to limit gifts that lobbyists can shower on lawmakers. On occasion, he has crossed the gambling industry on issues like regulating slot machines.
Perhaps no episode burnished Mr. McCain’s image as a reformer more than his stewardship three years ago of the Congressional investigation into Jack Abramoff, the disgraced Republican Indian gambling lobbyist who became a national symbol of the pay-to-play culture in Washington. The senator’s leadership during the scandal set the stage for the most sweeping overhaul of lobbying laws since Watergate.
“I’ve fought lobbyists who stole from Indian tribes,” the senator said in his speech accepting the Republican presidential nomination this month.
But interviews and records show that lobbyists and political operatives in Mr. McCain’s inner circle played a behind-the-scenes role in bringing Mr. Abramoff’s misdeeds to Mr. McCain’s attention — and then cashed in on the resulting investigation. The senator’s longtime chief political strategist, for example, was paid $100,000 over four months as a consultant to one tribe caught up in the inquiry, records show.
Mr. McCain’s campaign said the senator acted solely to protect American Indians, even though the inquiry posed “grave risk to his political interests.”
As public opposition to tribal casinos has grown in recent years, Mr. McCain has distanced himself from Indian gambling, Congressional and American Indian officials said.
But he has rarely wavered in his loyalty to Las Vegas, where he counts casino executives among his close friends and most prolific fund-raisers. “Beyond just his support for gaming, Nevada supports John McCain because he’s one of us, a Westerner at heart,” said Sig Rogich, a Nevada Republican kingmaker who raised nearly $2 million for Mr. McCain at an event at his home in June.
Only six members of Congress have received more money from the gambling industry than Mr. McCain, and five hail from the casino hubs of Nevada and New Jersey, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics dating back to 1989. In the presidential race, Senator Barack Obama has also received money from the industry; Mr. McCain has raised almost twice as much.
In May 2007, as Mr. McCain’s presidential bid was floundering, he spent a weekend at the MGM Grand on the Las Vegas strip. A fund-raiser hosted by J. Terrence Lanni, the casino’s top executive and a longtime friend of the senator, raised $400,000 for his campaign. Afterward, Mr. McCain attended a boxing match and hit the craps tables.
For much of his adult life, Mr. McCain has gambled as often as once a month, friends and associates said, traveling to Las Vegas for weekend betting marathons. Former senior campaign officials said they worried about Mr. McCain’s patronage of casinos, given the power he wields over the industry. The officials, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on condition of anonymity.
“We were always concerned about appearances,” one former official said. “If you go around saying that appearances matter, then they matter.”
The former official said he would tell Mr. McCain: “Do we really have to go to a casino? I don’t think it’s a good idea. The base doesn’t like it. It doesn’t look good. And good things don’t happen in casinos at midnight.”
“You worry too much,” Mr. McCain would respond, the official said.
A Record of Support
In one of their last conversations, Representative Morris K. Udall, Arizona’s powerful Democrat, whose devotion to American Indian causes was legendary, implored his friend Mr. McCain to carry on his legacy.
“Don’t forget the Indians,” Mr. Udall, who died in 1998, told Mr. McCain in a directive that the senator has recounted to others.
More than a decade earlier, Mr. Udall had persuaded Mr. McCain to join the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. Mr. McCain, whose home state has the third-highest Indian population, eloquently decried the “grinding poverty” that gripped many reservations.
The two men helped write the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 after the Supreme Court found that states had virtually no right to control wagering on reservations. The legislation provided a framework for the oversight and growth of Indian casinos: In 1988, Indian gambling represented less than 1 percent of the nation’s gambling revenues; today it captures more than one third.
On the Senate floor after the bill’s passage, Mr. McCain said he personally opposed Indian gambling, but when impoverished communities “are faced with only one option for economic development, and that is to set up gambling on their reservations, then I cannot disapprove.”
In 1994, Mr. McCain pushed an amendment that enabled dozens of additional tribes to win federal recognition and open casinos. And in 1998, Mr. McCain fought a Senate effort to rein in the boom.
He also voted twice in the last decade to give casinos tax breaks estimated to cost the government more than $326 million over a dozen years.
The first tax break benefited the industry in Las Vegas, one of a number of ways Mr. McCain has helped nontribal casinos. Mr. Lanni, the MGM Mirage chief executive, said that an unsuccessful bid by the senator to ban wagering on college sports in Nevada was the only time he could recall Mr. McCain opposing Las Vegas. “I can’t think of any other issue,” Mr. Lanni said.
The second tax break helped tribal casinos like Foxwoods and was pushed by Scott Reed, the Pequots’ lobbyist.
Mr. McCain had gotten to know Mr. Reed during Senator Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign, which Mr. Reed managed. Four years later, when Mr. McCain ran for president, Mr. Reed recommended he hire his close friend and protégé, Rick Davis, to manage that campaign.
During his 2000 primary race against George W. Bush, Mr. McCain promoted his record of helping Indian Country, telling reporters on a campaign swing that he had provided critical support to “the Pequot, now the proud owners of the largest casino in the world.”
But Mr. McCain’s record on Indian gambling was fast becoming a difficult issue for him in the primary. Bush supporters like Gov. John Engler of Michigan lambasted Mr. McCain for his “close ties to Indian gambling.”
A decade after Mr. McCain co-authored the Indian gambling act, the political tides had turned. Tribal casinos, which were growing at a blazing pace, had become increasingly unpopular around the country for reasons as varied as morality and traffic.
Then came the biggest lobbying scandal to shake Washington.
Behind an Inquiry
At a September 2004 hearing of the Indian Affairs Committee, Mr. McCain described Jack Abramoff as one of the most brazen in a long line of crooks to cheat American Indians. “It began with the sale of Manhattan, and has continued ever since,” he said. “What sets this tale apart, what makes it truly extraordinary, is the extent and degree of the apparent exploitation and deceit.”
Over the next two years, Mr. McCain helped uncover a breathtaking lobbying scandal — Mr. Abramoff and a partner bilked six tribes of $66 million — that showcased the senator’s willingness to risk the wrath of his own party to expose wrongdoing. But interviews and documents show that Mr. McCain and a circle of allies — lobbyists, lawyers and senior strategists — also seized on the case for its opportunities.
For McCain-connected lobbyists who were rivals of Mr. Abramoff, the scandal presented a chance to crush a competitor. For senior McCain advisers, the inquiry allowed them to collect fees from the very Indians that Mr. Abramoff had ripped off. And the investigation enabled Mr. McCain to confront political enemies who helped defeat him in his 2000 presidential run while polishing his maverick image.
The Abramoff saga started in early 2003 when members of two tribes began questioning Mr. Abramoff’s astronomical fees. Over the next year, they leaked information to local newspapers, but it took the hiring of lobbyists who were competitors of Mr. Abramoff to get the attention of Mr. McCain’s committee.
Bernie Sprague, who led the effort by one of the tribes, the Saginaw Chippewas in Michigan, hired a Democratic lobbyist who recommended that the tribe retain Scott Reed, the Republican lobbyist, to push for an investigation.
Mr. Reed had boasted to other lobbyists of his access to Mr. McCain, three close associates said. Mr. Reed “pretty much had open access to John from 2000 to at least the end of 2006,” one aide said.
Lobbyist disclosure forms show that Mr. Reed went to work for the Saginaw Chippewa on Feb. 15, 2004, charging the tribe $56,000 over a year. Mr. Abramoff had tried to steal the Pequots and another tribal client from Mr. Reed, and taking down Mr. Abramoff would eliminate a competitor.
Mr. Reed became the chief conduit to Mr. McCain’s committee for billing documents and other information Mr. Sprague was digging up on Mr. Abramoff, Mr. Sprague said, who said Mr. Reed “did a great to service to me.”
“He had contacts I did not,” Mr. Sprague said. “Initially, I think that the senator’s office was doing Reed a favor by listening to me.”
A few weeks after hiring Mr. Reed, Mr. Sprague received a letter from the senator. “We have met with Scott Reed, who was very helpful on the issue,” Mr. McCain wrote.
Information about Mr. Abramoff was also flowing to Mr. McCain’s committee from another tribe, the Coushatta of Louisiana. The source was a consultant named Roy Fletcher, who had been Mr. McCain’s deputy campaign manager in 2000, running his war room in South Carolina.
It was in that primary race that two of Mr. Abramoff’s closest associates, Grover Norquist, who runs the nonprofit Americans for Tax Reform, and Ralph Reed, the former director of the Christian Coalition, ran a blistering campaign questioning Mr. McCain’s conservative credentials. The senator and his advisers blamed that attack for Mr. McCain’s loss to Mr. Bush in South Carolina, creating tensions that would resurface in the Abramoff matter.
“I was interested in busting” Mr. Abramoff, said Mr. Fletcher, who was eventually hired to represent the tribe. “That was my job. But I was also filled with righteous indignation, I got to tell you.”
Mr. Fletcher said he began passing information to John Weaver, Mr. McCain’s chief political strategist, and other staff members in late 2003 or January 2004. Mr. Weaver confirmed the timing.
Mr. McCain announced his investigation on Feb. 26, 2004, citing an article on Mr. Abramoff in The Washington Post. He did not mention the action by lobbyists and tribes in the preceding weeks. His campaign said no one in his “innermost circle” brought information to Mr. McCain that prompted the investigation.
The senator declared he would not investigate members of Congress, whom Mr. Abramoff had lavished with tribal donations and golf outings to Scotland. But in the course of the investigation, the committee exposed Mr. Abramoff’s dealings with the two men who had helped defeat Mr. McCain in the 2000 primary.
The investigation showed that Mr. Norquist’s foundation was used by Mr. Abramoff to launder lobbying fees from tribes. Ralph Reed was found to have accepted $4 million to run bogus antigambling campaigns. And the investigation also highlighted Mr. Abramoff’s efforts to curry favor with the House majority leader at the time, Tom DeLay, Republican of Texas, a longtime political foe who had opposed many of Mr. McCain’s legislative priorities.
Mr. McCain’s campaign said the senator did not “single out” Ralph Reed or Mr. Norquist, neither of whom were ever charged, and that both men fell within the “scope of the investigation.” The inquiry, which led to guilty pleas by over a dozen individuals, was motivated by a desire to help aggrieved tribes, the campaign said.
Inside the investigation, the sense of schadenfreude was palpable, according to several people close to the senator. “It was like hitting pay dirt,” said one associate of Mr. McCain’s who had consulted with the senator’s office on the investigation. “And face it — McCain and Weaver were maniacal about Ralph Reed and Norquist. They were sticking little pins in dolls because those guys had cost him South Carolina.”
Down on the Coushattas reservation, bills related to the investigation kept coming. After firing Mr. Abramoff, the tribe hired Kent Hance, a lawyer and former Texas congressman who said he had been friends with Mr. McCain since the 1980s.
David Sickey, the tribe’s vice chairman, said he was “dumbfounded” over the bills submitted by Mr. Hance’s firm, Hance Scarborough, which had been hired by Mr. Sickey’s predecessors.
“The very thing we were fighting seemed to be happening all over again — these absurd amounts of money being paid,” Mr. Sickey said.
Mr. Hance’s firm billed the tribe nearly $1.3 million over 11 months in legal and political consulting fees, records show. But Mr. Sickey said that the billing statements offered only vague explanations for services and that he could not point to any tangible results. Two consultants, for instance, were paid to fight the expansion of gambling in Texas — even though it was unlikely given that the governor there opposed any such prospect, Mr. Sickey said.
Mr. Hance and Jay B. Stewart, the firm’s managing partner, defended their team’s work, saying they successfully steered the tribe through a difficult period. “We did an outstanding job for them,” Mr. Hance said. “When we told them our bill was going to be $100,000 a month, they thought we were cheap. Mr. Abramoff had charged them $1 million a month.”
The firm’s fees covered the services of Mr. Fletcher, who served as the tribe’s spokesman. Records also show that Mr. Hance had Mr. Weaver — who was serving as Mr. McCain’s chief strategist — put on the tribe’s payroll from February to May 2005.
It is not precisely clear what role Mr. Weaver played for his $100,000 fee.
Mr. Stewart said Mr. Weaver was hired because “he had a lot of experience with the Senate, especially the new chairman, John McCain.” The Hance firm told the tribe in a letter that Mr. Weaver was hired to provide “representation for the tribe before the U.S. Senate.”
But Mr. Weaver never registered to lobby on the issue, and he has another explanation for his work.
“The Hance law firm retained me to assist them and their client in developing an aggressive crisis management and communications strategy,” Mr. Weaver said. “At no point was I asked by Kent Hance or anyone associated with him to set up meetings with anyone in or outside of government to discuss this, and if asked I would have summarily declined to do so.”
In June 2005, the tribe informed Mr. Hance that his services were no longer needed.
Change in Tone
After the Abramoff scandal, Mr. McCain stopped taking campaign donations from tribes. Some American Indians were offended, especially since Mr. McCain continued to accept money from the tribes’ lobbyists.
Resentment in Indian Country mounted as Mr. McCain, who was preparing for another White House run, singled out the growth in tribal gambling as one of three national issues that were “out of control.” (The others were federal spending and illegal immigration.)
Franklin Ducheneaux, an aide to Morris Udall who helped draft the 1988 Indian gambling law, said that position ran contrary to Mr. McCain’s record. “What did he think? That Congress intended for the tribes to be only somewhat successful?” Mr. Ducheneaux said.
Mr. McCain began taking a broad look at whether the laws were sufficient to oversee the growing industry. His campaign said that the growth had put “considerable stress” on regulators and Mr. McCain held hearings on whether the federal government needed more oversight power.
An opportunity to restrain the industry came in the spring of 2005, when a small tribe in Connecticut set off a political battle. The group, the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation, had won federal recognition in 2004 after producing voluminous documentation tracing its roots.
The tribe wanted to build Connecticut’s third casino, which would compete with Foxwoods and another, the Mohegan Sun. Facing public opposition on the proposed casino, members of the Connecticut political establishment — many of whom had received large Pequot and Mohegan campaign donations — swung into action.
Connecticut officials claimed that a genealogical review by the Bureau of Indian Affairs was flawed, and that the Schaghticoke was not a tribe.
The tribe’s opponents, led by the Washington lobbying firm Barbour Griffith & Rogers, turned to Mr. McCain’s committee. It was a full-circle moment for the senator, who had helped the Pequots gain tribal recognition in the 1980s despite concerns about their legitimacy.
Now, Mr. McCain was doing a favor for allies in the Connecticut delegation, including Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, a close friend, according to two former Congressional aides. “It was one of those collegial deals,” said one of the aides, who worked for Mr. McCain.
Barbour Griffith & Rogers wanted Mr. McCain to hold a hearing that would show that the Bureau of Indian Affairs was “broken,” said Bradley A. Blakeman, who was a lobbyist for the firm at the time.
“It was our hope that the hearing would shed light on the fact that the bureau had not followed their rules and had improperly granted recognition to the Schaghticoke,” Mr. Blakeman said. “And that the bureau would revisit the issue and follow their rules.”
Mr. McCain’s staff helped that effort by offering strategic advice.
His staff told a lobbyist for the firm that the Indian Affairs Committee “would love to receive a letter” from the Connecticut governor requesting a hearing, according to an e-mail exchange, and offered “guidance on what the most effective tone and approach” would be in the letter.
On May 11, 2005, Mr. McCain held a hearing billed as a general “oversight hearing on federal recognition of Indian tribes.” But nearly all the witnesses were Schaghticoke opponents who portrayed the tribe as imposters.
Mr. McCain set the tone: “The role that gaming and its nontribal backers have played in the recognition process has increased perceptions that it is unfair, if not corrupt.”
Chief Richard F. Velky of the Schaghticokes found himself facing off against the governor and most of the state’s congressional delegation. “The deck was stacked against us,” Mr. Velky said. “They were given lots of time. I was given five minutes.”
He had always believed Mr. McCain “to be an honest and fair man,” Mr. Velky said, “but this didn’t make me feel that good.”
Mr. Velky said he felt worse when the e-mail messages between the tribe’s opponents and Mr. McCain’s staff surfaced in a federal lawsuit. “Is there a letter telling me how to address the senator to give me the best shot?” Mr. Velky asked. “No, there is not.”
After the hearing, Pablo E. Carrillo, who was Mr. McCain’s chief Abramoff investigator at the time, wrote to a Barbour Griffith & Rogers lobbyist, Brant Imperatore. “Your client’s side definitely got a good hearing record,” Mr. Carillo wrote, adding “you probably have a good sense” on where Mr. McCain “is headed on this.”
“Well done!” he added.
Cynthia Shaw, a Republican counsel to the committee from 2005 to 2007, said Mr. McCain made decisions based on merit, not special interests. “Everybody got a meeting who asked for one,” Ms. Shaw said, “whether you were represented by counsel or by a lobbyist — or regardless of which lobbyist.”
Mr. McCain’s campaign defended the senator’s handling of the Schaghticoke case, saying no staff member acted improperly. The campaign said the session was part of normal committee business and the notion that Mr. McCain was intending to help Congressional colleagues defeat the tribe was “absolutely false.”
It added that the senator’s commitment to Indian sovereignty “remains as strong as ever.”
Within months of the May 2005 hearing, the Bureau of Indian Affairs took the rare step of rescinding the Schaghticokes’ recognition. A federal court recently rejected the tribe’s claim that the reversal was politically motivated.
Making an Exception
That spring of 2005, as the Schaghticokes went down to defeat in the East, another tribe in the West squared off against Mr. McCain with its bid to construct a gambling emporium in California. The stakes were similar, but the outcome would be far different.
The tribe’s plan to build a casino on a former Navy base just outside San Francisco represented a trend rippling across the country: American Indians seeking to build casinos near population centers, far from their reservations.
The practice, known as “off-reservation shopping,” stemmed from the 1988 Indian gambling law, which included exceptions allowing some casinos to be built outside tribal lands. When Mr. McCain began his second stint as chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee three years ago, Las Vegas pressed him to revisit the exceptions he had helped create, according to Sig Rogich, the Republican fund-raiser from Nevada.
“We told him this off-reservation shopping had to stop,” Mr. Rogich said. “It was no secret that the gaming industry, as well as many potentially affected communities in other states, voiced opposition to the practice.”
In the spring of 2005, Mr. McCain announced he was planning a sweeping overhaul of Indian gambling laws, including limiting off-reservation casinos. His campaign said Las Vegas had nothing to do with it. In a 2005 interview with The Oregonian, Mr. McCain said that if Congress did not act, “soon every Indian tribe is going to have a casino in downtown, metropolitan areas.”
Prospects for the proposed California project did not look promising. Then the tribe, the Guidiville Band of Pomo Indians, hired a lobbyist based in Phoenix named Wes Gullett.
Mr. Gullett, who had never represented tribes before Congress, had known Mr. McCain since the early 1980s. Mr. Gullett met his wife while they were working in Mr. McCain’s Washington office. He subsequently managed Mr. McCain’s 1992 Senate campaign and served as a top aide to his 2000 presidential campaign. Their friendship went beyond politics. When Mr. McCain’s wife, Cindy, brought two infants in need of medical treatment back to Arizona from Bangladesh, the Gulletts adopted one baby and the McCains the other. The two men also liked to take weekend trips to Las Vegas.
Another of Mr. McCain’s close friends, former Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, was a major investor in the Guidivilles’ proposed casino. Mr. Cohen, who did not return calls, was best man at Mr. McCain’s 1980 wedding.
Scott Crowell, lawyer for the Guidivilles, said Mr. Gullett was hired to ensure that Mr. McCain’s overhaul of the Indian gambling laws did not harm the tribe.
Mr. Gullett said he never talked to Mr. McCain about the legislation. “If you are hired directly to lobby John McCain, you are not going to be effective,” he said. Mr. Gullett said he only helped prepare the testimony of the tribe’s administrator, Walter Gray, who was invited to plead his case before Mr. McCain’s committee in July 2005. Mr. Gullett said he advised Mr. Gray in a series of conference calls.
On disclosure forms filed with the Senate, however, Mr. Gullett stated that he was not hired until November, long after Mr. Gray’s testimony. Mr. Gullett said the late filing might have been “a mistake, but it was inadvertent.” Steve Hart, a former lawyer for the Guidivilles, backed up Mr. Gullett’s contention that he had guided Mr. Gray on his July testimony.
When asked whether Mr. Gullett had helped him, Mr. Gray responded, “I’ve never met the man and couldn’t tell you anything about him.”
On Nov. 18, 2005, when Mr. McCain introduced his promised legislation overhauling the Indian gambling law, he left largely intact a provision that the Guidivilles needed for their casino. Mr. McCain’s campaign declined to answer whether the senator spoke with Mr. Gullett or Mr. Cohen about the project. In the end, Mr. McCain’s bill died, largely because Indian gambling interests fought back. But the Department of Interior picked up where Mr. McCain left off, effectively doing through regulations what he had hoped to accomplish legislatively. Carl Artman, who served as the Interior Department’s assistant secretary of Indian Affairs until May, said Mr. McCain pushed him to rewrite the off-reservation rules. “It became one of my top priorities because Senator McCain made it clear it was one of his top priorities,” he said.
The new guidelines were issued on Jan. 4. As a result, the casino applications of 11 tribes were rejected. The Guidivilles were not among them.
-Kitty Bennett and Griff Palmer contributed to reporting
McCain says that he always puts country first. In this important case, that is simply not true.
By Fareed Zakaria
Columnist
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Oct 6, 2008
http://www.newsweek.com/id/161204
Will someone please put Sarah Palin out of her agony? Is it too much to ask that she come to realize that she wants, in that wonderful phrase in American politics, "to spend more time with her family"? Having stayed in purdah for weeks, she finally agreed to a third interview. CBS's Katie Couric questioned her in her trademark sympathetic style. It didn't help. When asked how living in the state closest to Russia gave her foreign-policy experience, Palin responded thus:
"It's very important when you consider even national-security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America. Where—where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to—to our state."
There is, of course, the sheer absurdity of the premise. Two weeks ago I flew to Tokyo, crossing over the North Pole. Does that make me an expert on Santa Claus? (Thanks, Jon Stewart.) But even beyond that, read the rest of her response. "It is from Alaska that we send out those …" What does this mean? This is not an isolated example. Palin has been given a set of talking points by campaign advisers, simple ideological mantras that she repeats and repeats as long as she can. ("We mustn't blink.") But if forced off those rehearsed lines, what she has to say is often, quite frankly, gibberish.
Couric asked her a smart question about the proposed $700 billion bailout of the American financial sector. It was designed to see if Palin understood that the problem in this crisis is that credit and liquidity in the financial system has dried up, and that that's why, in the estimation of Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, the government needs to step in to buy up Wall Street's most toxic liabilities. Here's the entire exchange:
COURIC: Why isn't it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries; allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?
PALIN: That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the—it's got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we've got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.
This is nonsense—a vapid emptying out of every catchphrase about economics that came into her head. Some commentators, like CNN's Campbell Brown, have argued that it's sexist to keep Sarah Palin under wraps, as if she were a delicate flower who might wilt under the bright lights of the modern media. But the more Palin talks, the more we see that it may not be sexism but common sense that's causing the McCain campaign to treat her like a time bomb.
Can we now admit the obvious? Sarah Palin is utterly unqualified to be vice president. She is a feisty, charismatic politician who has done some good things in Alaska. But she has never spent a day thinking about any important national or international issue, and this is a hell of a time to start. The next administration is going to face a set of challenges unlike any in recent memory. There is an ongoing military operation in Iraq that still costs $10 billion a month, a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan that is not going well and is not easily fixed. Iran, Russia and Venezuela present tough strategic challenges.
Domestically, the bailout and reform of the financial industry will take years and hundreds of billions of dollars. Health-care costs, unless curtailed, will bankrupt the federal government. Social Security, immigration, collapsing infrastructure and education are all going to get much worse if they are not handled soon.
And the American government is stretched to the limit. Between the Bush tax cuts, homeland-security needs, Iraq, Afghanistan and the bailout, the budget is looking bleak. Plus, within a few years, the retirement of the baby boomers begins with its massive and rising costs (in the trillions).
Obviously these are very serious challenges and constraints. In these times, for John McCain to have chosen this person to be his running mate is fundamentally irresponsible. McCain says that he always puts country first. In this important case, it is simply not true.
McCain says that he always puts country first. In this important case, that is simply not true.
By Fareed Zakaria
Columnist
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Oct 6, 2008
http://www.newsweek.com/id/161204
Will someone please put Sarah Palin out of her agony? Is it too much to ask that she come to realize that she wants, in that wonderful phrase in American politics, "to spend more time with her family"? Having stayed in purdah for weeks, she finally agreed to a third interview. CBS's Katie Couric questioned her in her trademark sympathetic style. It didn't help. When asked how living in the state closest to Russia gave her foreign-policy experience, Palin responded thus:
"It's very important when you consider even national-security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace of the United States of America. Where—where do they go? It's Alaska. It's just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there. They are right next to—to our state."
There is, of course, the sheer absurdity of the premise. Two weeks ago I flew to Tokyo, crossing over the North Pole. Does that make me an expert on Santa Claus? (Thanks, Jon Stewart.) But even beyond that, read the rest of her response. "It is from Alaska that we send out those …" What does this mean? This is not an isolated example. Palin has been given a set of talking points by campaign advisers, simple ideological mantras that she repeats and repeats as long as she can. ("We mustn't blink.") But if forced off those rehearsed lines, what she has to say is often, quite frankly, gibberish.
Couric asked her a smart question about the proposed $700 billion bailout of the American financial sector. It was designed to see if Palin understood that the problem in this crisis is that credit and liquidity in the financial system has dried up, and that that's why, in the estimation of Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, the government needs to step in to buy up Wall Street's most toxic liabilities. Here's the entire exchange:
COURIC: Why isn't it better, Governor Palin, to spend $700 billion helping middle-class families who are struggling with health care, housing, gas and groceries; allow them to spend more and put more money into the economy instead of helping these big financial institutions that played a role in creating this mess?
PALIN: That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the—it's got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we've got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.
This is nonsense—a vapid emptying out of every catchphrase about economics that came into her head. Some commentators, like CNN's Campbell Brown, have argued that it's sexist to keep Sarah Palin under wraps, as if she were a delicate flower who might wilt under the bright lights of the modern media. But the more Palin talks, the more we see that it may not be sexism but common sense that's causing the McCain campaign to treat her like a time bomb.
Can we now admit the obvious? Sarah Palin is utterly unqualified to be vice president. She is a feisty, charismatic politician who has done some good things in Alaska. But she has never spent a day thinking about any important national or international issue, and this is a hell of a time to start. The next administration is going to face a set of challenges unlike any in recent memory. There is an ongoing military operation in Iraq that still costs $10 billion a month, a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan that is not going well and is not easily fixed. Iran, Russia and Venezuela present tough strategic challenges.
Domestically, the bailout and reform of the financial industry will take years and hundreds of billions of dollars. Health-care costs, unless curtailed, will bankrupt the federal government. Social Security, immigration, collapsing infrastructure and education are all going to get much worse if they are not handled soon.
And the American government is stretched to the limit. Between the Bush tax cuts, homeland-security needs, Iraq, Afghanistan and the bailout, the budget is looking bleak. Plus, within a few years, the retirement of the baby boomers begins with its massive and rising costs (in the trillions).
Obviously these are very serious challenges and constraints. In these times, for John McCain to have chosen this person to be his running mate is fundamentally irresponsible. McCain says that he always puts country first. In this important case, it is simply not true.
Jacksonville, please
Thanks, John
I can see that everyone
has finally figured out to ignore Stephanie's posts. LOL
Why
don't you inform me.
I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....
* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic,
different."
* Grow up in Alaska eating moose-burgers, a quintessential American story.
* If your name is Barack, you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
* Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.
* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.
* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the
first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter
registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a
Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator
representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the
state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the
United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while
sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and
Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real
leadership experience.
* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council
and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months
as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified
to become the country's second highest ranking executive.
* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2
beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real
Christian.
* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your
disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a
Christian.
* If you teach children about sexual predators, you are
irresponsible and eroding the fiber of society.
* If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no
other option in sex education in your state's school system while your
unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.
* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a
prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city
community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't
represent America 's.
* If you're husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DWI
conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age
25 and once was a member of a group that hates America and advocated the
secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.
OK, much clearer now.
I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....
* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're "exotic,
different."
* Grow up in Alaska eating moose-burgers, a quintessential American story.
* If your name is Barack, you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.
* Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.
* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.
* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well grounded.
* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the
first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter
registration drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a
Constitutional Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator
representing a district with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the
state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the
United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people while
sponsoring 131 bills and serving on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and
Public Works and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real
leadership experience.
* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council
and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20 months
as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're qualified
to become the country's second highest ranking executive.
* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2
beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real
Christian.
* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and left your
disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a
Christian.
* If you teach children about sexual predators, you are
irresponsible and eroding the fiber of society.
* If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no
other option in sex education in your state's school system while your
unwed teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.
* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a
prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city
community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't
represent America 's.
* If you're husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DWI
conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until age
25 and once was a member of a group that hates America and advocated the
secession of Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.
OK, much clearer now.
Putting lipstick on an ass
John McCain | Sarah Palin
by Ed Naha | September 21, 2008
If the Vaudeville team of McCain and Palin ever makes it to the White House, there are certain things you can be sure of. Our new national symbol will be the Dodo. The stars and stripes will disappear from our flag, replaced by a banner reading: "foreclosed." Our currency will no longer boast the phrase "In God We Trust" but, rather, "WTF?" The country will be re-christened "The United States of Lemmings" and the wampum standard will be re-introduced as the basis of commerce.
The best that can be said about the McCain-Palin pairing is that there are only two of them. Whenever they speak in public, I'm reminded of Linda Blair's epic projectile vomiting scene in "The Exorcist." Their spew stinks to high heaven and there's a seemingly never-ending supply.
This past week, every thinking American was slimed. Big Time. These idiots can't even get their lies straight.
Because of his age, McCain, by default, is the biggest offender. Last Monday, as Wall Street reeled and the country stumbled from the "r" word towards the Great "d" word, McCain took to the stage and declared that the fundamentals of our economy were strong. As he was saying this, his team unleashed an add declaring that we were in a financial crisis. There will be a slight pause, here, to allow us all to recover from the whiplash.
When even the White House refused to parrot McCain's rosy outlook and Obama asked what economy Johnny boy was talking about, McCain ran onto another stage and said that by "fundamentals" he meant the "American worker." Yeah, that's the ticket. The American workers were strong. And if you made fun of McCain's feeble grasp of current conditions, you were making fun of the American workers.
Wednesday, while spewing in front of Detroit autoworkers about their strength, he was greeted by chants from the workers of "Obama '08." (Fool me once, you can't get fooled again.)
As McCain swung at the straw men in his mind, the Obama camp addressed the situation, calling for a return of strict regulations. McCain, who together with his financial guru Phil Gramm, has been a patron saint of deregulation for over two decades, suddenly pulled a one eighty and became a populist, echoing the call for tighter scrutiny. He also vowed to create a commission to study the problem. You know, like the 9/11 commission, the erudite group who came to the conclusion that planes were hijacked, buildings were hit and people were killed. The end.
As America's finances went down the toilet, McCain still found time to belch Hollywood names like Lindsay Lohan and Barbara Streisand in an attempt to pump up his "Obama is an out of touch celebrity" riff. I don't know about you, but when my 401k approaches 101k status, Barbara Streisand is not exactly on my radar.
In the past two weeks, McCain has shown himself to be a purely political animal - as in: weasel. He will say anything to get elected and avoid any references to the real world because, as he has proven over and over again, he's really not good at dealing with reality, although he was a heckuva POW.
He managed to avoid talking about real issues for five days, by accusing Barack Obama of insulting vice-presidential Twinkie Sarah Palin after Obama referred to McCain's old "new" economic approach as "putting lipstick on a pig." Outraged Republicans took to the airwaves, ads were made and talking heads became spinning heads. (Again, kudos, Linda Blair for your inspiration.)
Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift wailed: "It's clear to me - as I'm sure it will be to fair-minded Republicans, Democrats and independents across the country that Senator Obama owes Governor Palin an apology." (When Republicans were told that McCain himself had repeatedly used that phrase, including in reference to Hillary Clinton's health care policy, the communal response was "that was different.")
McCain's campaign manager inadvertently tipped the team's hand when he declared: "This election is not about issues. This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates." So, while the porcine palaver was building, the McCain camp released an add stating that Obama wanted to teach children about sex before they were old enough to read.
Pig makeup plus child endangerment added up to big bonus points for Johnny Mac, thought his handlers. Um, not quite. Even conservative columnists were offended.
Joe Klein said McCain was "responsible for one of the sleaziest ads I've ever seen in presidential politics, so sleazy that I won't abet its spread by linking to it."
Richard Cohen of the WP wrote, in a column entitled "The Ugly New McCain," "McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most. He has contempt for most of his colleagues for that very reason: They lie. He tells the truth. He internalizes the code of the McCains -- his grandfather, his father: both admirals of the shining sea. He serves his country differently, that's all -- but just as honorably. No more, though."
Even Karl Rove exclaimed that McCain was in Bizarro World.
The McClatchy news organization headlined: "Out of bounds! McCain misstates Obama sex-ed record."
Mark Halperin, ruminating on the subject of pig accessorizing, declared: "To spend even a minute on this expression, I think, is amazing and outrageous."
Much of the MSM attempted to show that "both" sides of the campaign were guilty of lying, thus exonerating McCain from his pompous Pinocchio putsch, but that tact didn't really work. "The Washington Post's" Ruth Marcus, while admitting that she tried to be even-handed about the current campaign, concluded: "All campaigns fall short, but some fall far shorter than others. And it is a phony evenhandedness, comfortable for journalists but ultimately misleading, that equates these failures without measuring the grossness of their deviation from the standard of decency.
"In the 2008 race, and especially in the past few weeks, the imbalance has become unnervingly stark. Ideological differences aside, John McCain's campaign has been more dishonest, more unfair, more -- to use a word that resonates with McCain -- dishonorable than Barack Obama's...
"McCain's transgressions... are of a different magnitude. His whoppers are bigger; there are more of them. He -- the easy out would be to say 'his campaign' -- has been misleading, and at times has outright lied, about his opponent. He has misrepresented -- that's the charitable verb -- his vice presidential nominee's record. Called on these fouls, he has denied and repeated them."
Ow.
And, while financial leader McCain railed against greedy people, old boys' networks, lobbyists and, basically, every type of person who supports him, the AP summed up his current whirling dervish status with a succinct: "John McCain embraces and expels Washington like an accordion player belting out a song.
"Squeeze in and he touts his vast knowledge of the capital city. Draw out and he casts himself a reformer bent on changing its ways."
Ironically, McCain's penchant for yarn spinning was brought into the spotlight, not by hard-boiled reporters, but by the panel of TV's "The View," Barbara Walters' talk show. Co-host Joy Behar, talking of both of McCain's ads simply said to him: "We know that those two ads are untrue. They are lies."
A visibly shaken McCain lied: "Actually, they are not lies."
That started the bawl rolling, with McCain getting testier and testier on TV programs. Everyone's favorite mannequin, Cindy McCain, sniffed, re: "The View." "They picked our bones clean." How did "they" get past the diamonds?
As headlines such as "The Washington Post's" "As Campaign Heats Up, Untruths Can Become Facts Before They're Undone," became more frequent, McCain finally was forced to come, uh, clean. Asked if Obama really called Sarah Palin a pig as his ad claimed, McCain simply said "No."
He defended his ad, though, saying that, "I know that he chooses his words carefully, and it was the wrong thing to say."
Got it? Me, neither.
Seeking to bolster his status as a financial wizard, McCain sent mouthpiece, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina out before the cameras. Bad news. Within six hours, she had given two interviews saying that neither McCain nor Palin would be capable of running a company. Uh.
It should be noted that Fiorina was canned at Hewlett-Packard. (Maybe she can now take on that easier job of being president.) Apparently, Fiorina's on air assessment sent McCain into a Donald Duck fit. A staff person told CNN "Carly will now disappear."
That same day, another helpful staffer offered that McCain's work in the Senate was directly responsible for the invention of The Blackberry - a nice trick, considering that the Blackberry was developed in Canada. Other staffers were poised to give McCain credit for Canadian bacon, Polish sausage and Turkish taffy but thought better of it at the last minute.
Still on a roll, McCain, taking the financial crash into consideration, declared that, if he were president, he would fire the head of the Security and Exchange Commission. Please note: the president does not have the authority to sack the SEC head. (Rod Serling is holding on line four, Senator.)
By week's end and with the biggest U.S. bailout of troubled financial institutions since the Great Depression occurring, McCain decided to combine his expertise on finances with his newly declared penchant for reform. Regarding health care, his crowed: "Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."
Coming to a theater near you: John McCain stars in the re-make of "Clueless."
With his status as a financial wizard assured, McCain went on to prove his worth as an expert on global affairs.
McCain was interviewed on the Florida affiliate of Spanish radio network Union Radio. In the interview McCain appeared not to know who the Prime Minister of Spain was and assumed he was some anti-American lefty leader from South America.
Confused about McCain's response, the interviewer attempted to point out that Spain's Prime Minster Zapatero isn't from South of the Border but, uh, Spain, you know, that NATO country? Would McCain work with him if elected?
Said Johnny Mac: "All I can tell you is that I have a clear record of working with leaders in the Hemisphere that are friends with us and standing up to those who are not. And that's judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America and the entire region."
The dumbfounded interviewer responded with, "But what about Europe? I'm talking about the President of Spain."
"What about me, what?" McCain theorized.
The baffled interviewer tried again. "Are you willing to meet with him if you're elected president?"
McCain noted sagely, "I am wiling to meet with any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for humans rights, democracy and freedom. And I will stand up to those who do not."
On the plus side, this international interview caused multiple translation of the term "WTF?"
Apparently, the interview ended before McCain could complain about leaders who carved the letter "Z" into your shirt before riding off into the darkness.
McCain shill Randy Scheunemann quickly rode to Mac's rescue, saying that McCain's addled responses were actually a clever political ploy and meant to put Spain's left-leaning government on notice. "In this week's interview, Senator McCain did not rule in or rule out a White House meeting with President Zapatero, a NATO ally. If elected, he will meet with a wide range of allies in a wide variety of venues but is not going to spell out scheduling and meeting location specifics in advance. He also is not going to make reckless promises to meet America's adversaries. It's called keeping your options open, unlike Senator Obama who has publicly committed to meeting some of the world's worst dictators unconditionally in his first year in office."
Got it? Me, neither.
"Time's" Joe Klein summed up McCain's past few weeks thus: "McCain's lies have ranged from the annoying to the sleazy, and the problem is in both degree and kind. His campaign has been a ceaseless assault on his opponent's character and policies, featuring a consistent--and witting--disdain for the truth...
"Worse than the lies have been the smears. McCain ran a television ad claiming that Obama favored "comprehensive" sex education for kindergartners. (Obama favored a bill that would have warned kindergartners about sexual predators and improper touching.) The accusation that Obama was referring to Sarah Palin when he said McCain's effort to remarket his economic policies was putting 'lipstick on a pig' another clearly misleading attack -- an obnoxious attempt to divert attention from Palin's lack of fitness for the job and the recklessness with which McCain chose her. McCain's assault on the 'elite media' for spreading rumors about Palin's personal life -- actually, the culprits were a few bloggers and the tabloid press -- was more of the same. And that gets us close to the real problem here. The McCain camp has decided that its candidate can't win honorably on the issues, so it has resorted to transparent and phony diversions."
Clearly, McCain has a lot to blubber about, which brings us to his running matie, Governess Sarah Palin. Last week, she sat down with ABC's Charles Gibson to show her political stuff. My favorite answer was to the question: "Why can't most Americans locate Alaska on a map?"
She replied: ""I personally believe... that U.S. Americans are unable to do so... because... Uh... some people out there in our nation don't have maps... And... uh... I believe that our education, like such as in South Africa and... uh... the Iraq, everywhere, like, such as...And I believe that they should... Our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S... uh... Or, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries... So we will be able to build up our future... for our [children]."
Oh, sorry. That was an answer from a different failed beauty pageant contestant.
Suffice to say that Palin's ABC interview sounded like a college freshman trying to bluff his or her way through an oral book report after only reading the Cliff Notes. She came across as a splendid comedic combo of "2001's" robotic Hal unplugged and singing "Daisy," SNL's Rosanne Rosannadanna and Laugh-In's Lily Tomlin's "Ringy-Dingy Operator."
Her second televised interview, with Fox's hard-hitting, uh, reporter Sean Hannity, sounded like a high school dry-hump.
As the days stagger on, it's becoming clear that zippy Palin should be introduced at all public functions by either the Rolling Stone's song "Yesterday's Paper" or Streisand's "Second Hand Rose." This one trick pony has no more tricks up her sleeve, aside from her expensive fashion re-tooling. ($2,500 for a blouse? Get me Woody Guthrie on the phone.)
She's lied about her objection to the "Bridge To Nowhere," going so far as to tell Hannity that she was personally responsible for torpedoing it. She's lied about taking a pay-cut as mayor. She's lied about her continuing support for a "Road To Nowhere." She's lied about her turning away government pork. She's lied about ad-libbing during her acceptance speech when the Teleprompters allegedly went kablooie. She's told two different versions of how she reacted to being offered the office of vice-president in her two televised interviews. She's gone out of her way to hide her official e-mails by putting them on private accounts. She left her town in debt, when she moved from mayor to governor. She spent $50,000 redecorating her governor's office and installed a tanning booth on the premises. She billed the state for time spent at her own home. She billed the state for her family's travel plans.
In short, she's a Republican's wet dream.
In terms of the now-infamous "Troopergate" fiasco? Where to begin? Allegedly, she tried to get her ex-brother-in-law State Trooper Michael Wooten canned from his job once she got the governorship. When this failed, she allegedly fired Alaska public safety director Walt Monegan because he wouldn't fire Wooten.
Thus far, Palin has said that: 1) She fired Monegan because of his "outright insubordination," which included his taking a secret trip to Washington D.C. Unfortunately, ABC news has found documents that Palin's staff authorized the trip. 2) She didn't fire Monegan. He resigned when she wanted to transfer him to another position with a pay cut. 3) She fired Monegan because he sought more funding to pursue sex crimes in Alaska, the state being the country's leader in rapes. She opposed the funding. 4) She fired Monegan because he wouldn't combat alcohol abuse in rural Alaska to the extent she desired.
Got it? Me, neither.
And, thus, a bi-partisan state investigation was launched regarding Mohegan's disappearance. Before she was named as potential veep, Palin welcomed the bi-partisan investigation. Since, then? McCain's campaign has leaped into the breach...the way Godzilla hit Tokyo.
Despite the fact that a judge, three years ago, warned Sarah Palin and her family that their efforts to "disparage" Wooten amounted to "a form of child abuse," the McCain team has labeled the investigation a "partisan witch hunt" and has, in the biggest airlift since Berlin, dropped Republican "truth investigators" into Alaska to derail the "bi-partisan investigation" and harass reporters who have the temerity to write about the story.
Five Alaskan Republicans have sued to stop the investigation.
The Alaskan Attorney General, appointed by Palin, has declared that no state employees will acknowledge the legal procedure of being subpoenaed. In other words...everyone is going to shut up. Big Time. Palin's husband, not actually a state employee, has also refused to testify.
Enter the McCain squad, like an Acme Anvil dropping on a sparrow.
McCain ordered a former top Justice Department honcho to head the charge. Hiring Edward O'Callaghan, who until six weeks ago served as co-chief of the terrorism and national security unit of the U.S. attorney's office in New York, shows just how much the McCain campaign wants "Troopergate" to go away. Not only is Team McCain taking over any and all responses to the investigation, it is effectively limiting access to any and all records regarding Palin's time in office.
McCain's team is now holding press conferences smearing the Democrats involved in the bi-partisan investigation, most notably state senator Hollis French. O'Callaghan is personally helping Palin lawyer Thomas Van Flein in fashioning an A-1 smokescreen. Team McCain, filing motion after motion in an attempt to nuke the investigation, would like nothing more than either destroy any attempt to expose Palin's "let them eat moose" governing style or simply push the investigation back until after the election when, one way or the other, it will be a moot point.
I love the smell of reform in the morning.
Reflecting many Alaskans' resentment of being strong-armed by McCain's goons, the state's leading newspapers have admonished Palin for her nasty attempt at stonewalling and one deli is now offering a "Sarah Palin Roast Pig Sandwich." (It's $12, a tube of lipstick included.)
On the home front, reflecting his leadership qualities when faced with domestic turmoil, McCain has vowed to change his name to "Hoover."
On the plus side, we can all breathe easier knowing that Team McCain will do their best to combat any and all witch hunts in the future. For Palin, this is a natural. She's often told the story of a pastor who prayed over her at the Wasilla Assembly of God church, calling on the Lord to make Palin governor.
What she didn't mention was that Pastor Thomas Muthee got his start in Kenya by organizing a real, um, witch hunt. Convinced that demons were in his midst, Muthee prayed for guidance and learned that a local woman, called Mama Jane, was, in reality a witch who caused fatal fender benders.
After organizing months of round-the-clock prayer intercessions, Muthee declared victory over the witch when, apparently getting tired of being threatened with a public stoning, she split town.
Welcome to the McCain-Palin view of the world.
Let he who is without spin cast the first vote.
Linda Blair, come home. All is forgiven.
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/17311
Putting lipstick on an ass
John McCain | Sarah Palin
by Ed Naha | September 21, 2008
If the Vaudeville team of McCain and Palin ever makes it to the White House, there are certain things you can be sure of. Our new national symbol will be the Dodo. The stars and stripes will disappear from our flag, replaced by a banner reading: "foreclosed." Our currency will no longer boast the phrase "In God We Trust" but, rather, "WTF?" The country will be re-christened "The United States of Lemmings" and the wampum standard will be re-introduced as the basis of commerce.
The best that can be said about the McCain-Palin pairing is that there are only two of them. Whenever they speak in public, I'm reminded of Linda Blair's epic projectile vomiting scene in "The Exorcist." Their spew stinks to high heaven and there's a seemingly never-ending supply.
This past week, every thinking American was slimed. Big Time. These idiots can't even get their lies straight.
Because of his age, McCain, by default, is the biggest offender. Last Monday, as Wall Street reeled and the country stumbled from the "r" word towards the Great "d" word, McCain took to the stage and declared that the fundamentals of our economy were strong. As he was saying this, his team unleashed an add declaring that we were in a financial crisis. There will be a slight pause, here, to allow us all to recover from the whiplash.
When even the White House refused to parrot McCain's rosy outlook and Obama asked what economy Johnny boy was talking about, McCain ran onto another stage and said that by "fundamentals" he meant the "American worker." Yeah, that's the ticket. The American workers were strong. And if you made fun of McCain's feeble grasp of current conditions, you were making fun of the American workers.
Wednesday, while spewing in front of Detroit autoworkers about their strength, he was greeted by chants from the workers of "Obama '08." (Fool me once, you can't get fooled again.)
As McCain swung at the straw men in his mind, the Obama camp addressed the situation, calling for a return of strict regulations. McCain, who together with his financial guru Phil Gramm, has been a patron saint of deregulation for over two decades, suddenly pulled a one eighty and became a populist, echoing the call for tighter scrutiny. He also vowed to create a commission to study the problem. You know, like the 9/11 commission, the erudite group who came to the conclusion that planes were hijacked, buildings were hit and people were killed. The end.
As America's finances went down the toilet, McCain still found time to belch Hollywood names like Lindsay Lohan and Barbara Streisand in an attempt to pump up his "Obama is an out of touch celebrity" riff. I don't know about you, but when my 401k approaches 101k status, Barbara Streisand is not exactly on my radar.
In the past two weeks, McCain has shown himself to be a purely political animal - as in: weasel. He will say anything to get elected and avoid any references to the real world because, as he has proven over and over again, he's really not good at dealing with reality, although he was a heckuva POW.
He managed to avoid talking about real issues for five days, by accusing Barack Obama of insulting vice-presidential Twinkie Sarah Palin after Obama referred to McCain's old "new" economic approach as "putting lipstick on a pig." Outraged Republicans took to the airwaves, ads were made and talking heads became spinning heads. (Again, kudos, Linda Blair for your inspiration.)
Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift wailed: "It's clear to me - as I'm sure it will be to fair-minded Republicans, Democrats and independents across the country that Senator Obama owes Governor Palin an apology." (When Republicans were told that McCain himself had repeatedly used that phrase, including in reference to Hillary Clinton's health care policy, the communal response was "that was different.")
McCain's campaign manager inadvertently tipped the team's hand when he declared: "This election is not about issues. This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates." So, while the porcine palaver was building, the McCain camp released an add stating that Obama wanted to teach children about sex before they were old enough to read.
Pig makeup plus child endangerment added up to big bonus points for Johnny Mac, thought his handlers. Um, not quite. Even conservative columnists were offended.
Joe Klein said McCain was "responsible for one of the sleaziest ads I've ever seen in presidential politics, so sleazy that I won't abet its spread by linking to it."
Richard Cohen of the WP wrote, in a column entitled "The Ugly New McCain," "McCain has turned ugly. His dishonesty would be unacceptable in any politician, but McCain has always set his own bar higher than most. He has contempt for most of his colleagues for that very reason: They lie. He tells the truth. He internalizes the code of the McCains -- his grandfather, his father: both admirals of the shining sea. He serves his country differently, that's all -- but just as honorably. No more, though."
Even Karl Rove exclaimed that McCain was in Bizarro World.
The McClatchy news organization headlined: "Out of bounds! McCain misstates Obama sex-ed record."
Mark Halperin, ruminating on the subject of pig accessorizing, declared: "To spend even a minute on this expression, I think, is amazing and outrageous."
Much of the MSM attempted to show that "both" sides of the campaign were guilty of lying, thus exonerating McCain from his pompous Pinocchio putsch, but that tact didn't really work. "The Washington Post's" Ruth Marcus, while admitting that she tried to be even-handed about the current campaign, concluded: "All campaigns fall short, but some fall far shorter than others. And it is a phony evenhandedness, comfortable for journalists but ultimately misleading, that equates these failures without measuring the grossness of their deviation from the standard of decency.
"In the 2008 race, and especially in the past few weeks, the imbalance has become unnervingly stark. Ideological differences aside, John McCain's campaign has been more dishonest, more unfair, more -- to use a word that resonates with McCain -- dishonorable than Barack Obama's...
"McCain's transgressions... are of a different magnitude. His whoppers are bigger; there are more of them. He -- the easy out would be to say 'his campaign' -- has been misleading, and at times has outright lied, about his opponent. He has misrepresented -- that's the charitable verb -- his vice presidential nominee's record. Called on these fouls, he has denied and repeated them."
Ow.
And, while financial leader McCain railed against greedy people, old boys' networks, lobbyists and, basically, every type of person who supports him, the AP summed up his current whirling dervish status with a succinct: "John McCain embraces and expels Washington like an accordion player belting out a song.
"Squeeze in and he touts his vast knowledge of the capital city. Draw out and he casts himself a reformer bent on changing its ways."
Ironically, McCain's penchant for yarn spinning was brought into the spotlight, not by hard-boiled reporters, but by the panel of TV's "The View," Barbara Walters' talk show. Co-host Joy Behar, talking of both of McCain's ads simply said to him: "We know that those two ads are untrue. They are lies."
A visibly shaken McCain lied: "Actually, they are not lies."
That started the bawl rolling, with McCain getting testier and testier on TV programs. Everyone's favorite mannequin, Cindy McCain, sniffed, re: "The View." "They picked our bones clean." How did "they" get past the diamonds?
As headlines such as "The Washington Post's" "As Campaign Heats Up, Untruths Can Become Facts Before They're Undone," became more frequent, McCain finally was forced to come, uh, clean. Asked if Obama really called Sarah Palin a pig as his ad claimed, McCain simply said "No."
He defended his ad, though, saying that, "I know that he chooses his words carefully, and it was the wrong thing to say."
Got it? Me, neither.
Seeking to bolster his status as a financial wizard, McCain sent mouthpiece, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina out before the cameras. Bad news. Within six hours, she had given two interviews saying that neither McCain nor Palin would be capable of running a company. Uh.
It should be noted that Fiorina was canned at Hewlett-Packard. (Maybe she can now take on that easier job of being president.) Apparently, Fiorina's on air assessment sent McCain into a Donald Duck fit. A staff person told CNN "Carly will now disappear."
That same day, another helpful staffer offered that McCain's work in the Senate was directly responsible for the invention of The Blackberry - a nice trick, considering that the Blackberry was developed in Canada. Other staffers were poised to give McCain credit for Canadian bacon, Polish sausage and Turkish taffy but thought better of it at the last minute.
Still on a roll, McCain, taking the financial crash into consideration, declared that, if he were president, he would fire the head of the Security and Exchange Commission. Please note: the president does not have the authority to sack the SEC head. (Rod Serling is holding on line four, Senator.)
By week's end and with the biggest U.S. bailout of troubled financial institutions since the Great Depression occurring, McCain decided to combine his expertise on finances with his newly declared penchant for reform. Regarding health care, his crowed: "Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."
Coming to a theater near you: John McCain stars in the re-make of "Clueless."
With his status as a financial wizard assured, McCain went on to prove his worth as an expert on global affairs.
McCain was interviewed on the Florida affiliate of Spanish radio network Union Radio. In the interview McCain appeared not to know who the Prime Minister of Spain was and assumed he was some anti-American lefty leader from South America.
Confused about McCain's response, the interviewer attempted to point out that Spain's Prime Minster Zapatero isn't from South of the Border but, uh, Spain, you know, that NATO country? Would McCain work with him if elected?
Said Johnny Mac: "All I can tell you is that I have a clear record of working with leaders in the Hemisphere that are friends with us and standing up to those who are not. And that's judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America and the entire region."
The dumbfounded interviewer responded with, "But what about Europe? I'm talking about the President of Spain."
"What about me, what?" McCain theorized.
The baffled interviewer tried again. "Are you willing to meet with him if you're elected president?"
McCain noted sagely, "I am wiling to meet with any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for humans rights, democracy and freedom. And I will stand up to those who do not."
On the plus side, this international interview caused multiple translation of the term "WTF?"
Apparently, the interview ended before McCain could complain about leaders who carved the letter "Z" into your shirt before riding off into the darkness.
McCain shill Randy Scheunemann quickly rode to Mac's rescue, saying that McCain's addled responses were actually a clever political ploy and meant to put Spain's left-leaning government on notice. "In this week's interview, Senator McCain did not rule in or rule out a White House meeting with President Zapatero, a NATO ally. If elected, he will meet with a wide range of allies in a wide variety of venues but is not going to spell out scheduling and meeting location specifics in advance. He also is not going to make reckless promises to meet America's adversaries. It's called keeping your options open, unlike Senator Obama who has publicly committed to meeting some of the world's worst dictators unconditionally in his first year in office."
Got it? Me, neither.
"Time's" Joe Klein summed up McCain's past few weeks thus: "McCain's lies have ranged from the annoying to the sleazy, and the problem is in both degree and kind. His campaign has been a ceaseless assault on his opponent's character and policies, featuring a consistent--and witting--disdain for the truth...
"Worse than the lies have been the smears. McCain ran a television ad claiming that Obama favored "comprehensive" sex education for kindergartners. (Obama favored a bill that would have warned kindergartners about sexual predators and improper touching.) The accusation that Obama was referring to Sarah Palin when he said McCain's effort to remarket his economic policies was putting 'lipstick on a pig' another clearly misleading attack -- an obnoxious attempt to divert attention from Palin's lack of fitness for the job and the recklessness with which McCain chose her. McCain's assault on the 'elite media' for spreading rumors about Palin's personal life -- actually, the culprits were a few bloggers and the tabloid press -- was more of the same. And that gets us close to the real problem here. The McCain camp has decided that its candidate can't win honorably on the issues, so it has resorted to transparent and phony diversions."
Clearly, McCain has a lot to blubber about, which brings us to his running matie, Governess Sarah Palin. Last week, she sat down with ABC's Charles Gibson to show her political stuff. My favorite answer was to the question: "Why can't most Americans locate Alaska on a map?"
She replied: ""I personally believe... that U.S. Americans are unable to do so... because... Uh... some people out there in our nation don't have maps... And... uh... I believe that our education, like such as in South Africa and... uh... the Iraq, everywhere, like, such as...And I believe that they should... Our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S... uh... Or, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries... So we will be able to build up our future... for our [children]."
Oh, sorry. That was an answer from a different failed beauty pageant contestant.
Suffice to say that Palin's ABC interview sounded like a college freshman trying to bluff his or her way through an oral book report after only reading the Cliff Notes. She came across as a splendid comedic combo of "2001's" robotic Hal unplugged and singing "Daisy," SNL's Rosanne Rosannadanna and Laugh-In's Lily Tomlin's "Ringy-Dingy Operator."
Her second televised interview, with Fox's hard-hitting, uh, reporter Sean Hannity, sounded like a high school dry-hump.
As the days stagger on, it's becoming clear that zippy Palin should be introduced at all public functions by either the Rolling Stone's song "Yesterday's Paper" or Streisand's "Second Hand Rose." This one trick pony has no more tricks up her sleeve, aside from her expensive fashion re-tooling. ($2,500 for a blouse? Get me Woody Guthrie on the phone.)
She's lied about her objection to the "Bridge To Nowhere," going so far as to tell Hannity that she was personally responsible for torpedoing it. She's lied about taking a pay-cut as mayor. She's lied about her continuing support for a "Road To Nowhere." She's lied about her turning away government pork. She's lied about ad-libbing during her acceptance speech when the Teleprompters allegedly went kablooie. She's told two different versions of how she reacted to being offered the office of vice-president in her two televised interviews. She's gone out of her way to hide her official e-mails by putting them on private accounts. She left her town in debt, when she moved from mayor to governor. She spent $50,000 redecorating her governor's office and installed a tanning booth on the premises. She billed the state for time spent at her own home. She billed the state for her family's travel plans.
In short, she's a Republican's wet dream.
In terms of the now-infamous "Troopergate" fiasco? Where to begin? Allegedly, she tried to get her ex-brother-in-law State Trooper Michael Wooten canned from his job once she got the governorship. When this failed, she allegedly fired Alaska public safety director Walt Monegan because he wouldn't fire Wooten.
Thus far, Palin has said that: 1) She fired Monegan because of his "outright insubordination," which included his taking a secret trip to Washington D.C. Unfortunately, ABC news has found documents that Palin's staff authorized the trip. 2) She didn't fire Monegan. He resigned when she wanted to transfer him to another position with a pay cut. 3) She fired Monegan because he sought more funding to pursue sex crimes in Alaska, the state being the country's leader in rapes. She opposed the funding. 4) She fired Monegan because he wouldn't combat alcohol abuse in rural Alaska to the extent she desired.
Got it? Me, neither.
And, thus, a bi-partisan state investigation was launched regarding Mohegan's disappearance. Before she was named as potential veep, Palin welcomed the bi-partisan investigation. Since, then? McCain's campaign has leaped into the breach...the way Godzilla hit Tokyo.
Despite the fact that a judge, three years ago, warned Sarah Palin and her family that their efforts to "disparage" Wooten amounted to "a form of child abuse," the McCain team has labeled the investigation a "partisan witch hunt" and has, in the biggest airlift since Berlin, dropped Republican "truth investigators" into Alaska to derail the "bi-partisan investigation" and harass reporters who have the temerity to write about the story.
Five Alaskan Republicans have sued to stop the investigation.
The Alaskan Attorney General, appointed by Palin, has declared that no state employees will acknowledge the legal procedure of being subpoenaed. In other words...everyone is going to shut up. Big Time. Palin's husband, not actually a state employee, has also refused to testify.
Enter the McCain squad, like an Acme Anvil dropping on a sparrow.
McCain ordered a former top Justice Department honcho to head the charge. Hiring Edward O'Callaghan, who until six weeks ago served as co-chief of the terrorism and national security unit of the U.S. attorney's office in New York, shows just how much the McCain campaign wants "Troopergate" to go away. Not only is Team McCain taking over any and all responses to the investigation, it is effectively limiting access to any and all records regarding Palin's time in office.
McCain's team is now holding press conferences smearing the Democrats involved in the bi-partisan investigation, most notably state senator Hollis French. O'Callaghan is personally helping Palin lawyer Thomas Van Flein in fashioning an A-1 smokescreen. Team McCain, filing motion after motion in an attempt to nuke the investigation, would like nothing more than either destroy any attempt to expose Palin's "let them eat moose" governing style or simply push the investigation back until after the election when, one way or the other, it will be a moot point.
I love the smell of reform in the morning.
Reflecting many Alaskans' resentment of being strong-armed by McCain's goons, the state's leading newspapers have admonished Palin for her nasty attempt at stonewalling and one deli is now offering a "Sarah Palin Roast Pig Sandwich." (It's $12, a tube of lipstick included.)
On the home front, reflecting his leadership qualities when faced with domestic turmoil, McCain has vowed to change his name to "Hoover."
On the plus side, we can all breathe easier knowing that Team McCain will do their best to combat any and all witch hunts in the future. For Palin, this is a natural. She's often told the story of a pastor who prayed over her at the Wasilla Assembly of God church, calling on the Lord to make Palin governor.
What she didn't mention was that Pastor Thomas Muthee got his start in Kenya by organizing a real, um, witch hunt. Convinced that demons were in his midst, Muthee prayed for guidance and learned that a local woman, called Mama Jane, was, in reality a witch who caused fatal fender benders.
After organizing months of round-the-clock prayer intercessions, Muthee declared victory over the witch when, apparently getting tired of being threatened with a public stoning, she split town.
Welcome to the McCain-Palin view of the world.
Let he who is without spin cast the first vote.
Linda Blair, come home. All is forgiven.
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/17311
Buffalo, please.
TY
Didn't Bush want
to invest Social Security into the market. LOL
Great decision makers! Horrible policy makers.
Didn't Bush want
to invest Social Security into the market. LOL
Great decision makers! Horrible policy makers.
I think some people
just like to see their name in print regardless of the babble.
Alaska lawmakers vote to subpoena Todd Palin By GENE JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
Sat Sep 13, 3:54 AM ET
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - The abuse of power investigation against Sarah Palin, Alaska governor and Republican vice presidential candidate, took a potentially ominous turn for her party on Friday when state lawmakers voted to subpoena her husband.
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Republican efforts to delay the probe until after the Nov. 4 election were thwarted when GOP State Sen. Charlie Huggins, who represents Palin's hometown of Wasilla, sided with Democrats. "Let's just get the facts on the table," said Huggins, who appeared in camouflage pants to vote during a break from moose hunting.
The Senate committee acted at the request of investigator Stephen Branchflower, who is gathering evidence on whether Gov. Palin abused her power by firing Walt Monegan, the state's director of public safety. Critics charge she fired Monegan after he refused to dismiss Mike Wooten, a state trooper who had a messy divorce from the governor's sister. Palin says Monegan was let go because of a budget dispute.
Thomas Van Flein, the Palins' private attorney now representing her as governor, did not immediately return calls for comment. In a broadcast interview, Palin said she welcomed the investigation.
"There's nothing to hide," she said in an interview with ABC's Charles Gibson. "Commissioner Monegan has said, 'The governor never asked me to fire him, the governor's husband never asked me to fire him,' and we never did. I never pressured him to hire or fire anybody."
Branchflower said he wants to interview the governor, but omitted her from the 13-person list of subpoena targets he presented to the lawmakers overseeing his investigation.
He said Todd Palin is "such a central figure. ... I think one should be issued for him."
Palin, cast at last week's Republican National Convention as a supportive husband, oil rig worker and championship snowmachine racer, has emerged in the days since as also a powerful figure in his wife's administration. Despite holding no government position, he attends official meetings and is copied on e-mails concerning state business.
While Todd Palin's role in the dismissal of Monegan is unknown, the request for a subpoena suggests he spurned earlier calls to testify voluntarily. Monegan voluntarily submitted to an interview earlier in the week.
Nor was it immediately clear whether Van Flein was representing Todd Palin as well as the governor in the investigation. Van Flein is working at taxpayer expense to represent the governor in her personal and official capacity.
The subpoenas, which were approved for 12 state employees in addition to Todd Palin, instantly gave a new, national significance to what until recently was a controversy confined to Alaska.
The McCain campaign released a statement from Alaska Lt. Governor Sean Parnell, blaming Democrats.
"I'm disappointed by the complete hijacking of what should be a fair and objective process," the Republican said, calling the investigation a "smear."
The investigation — dubbed "Troopergate" — began before Palin was chosen as Sen. John McCain's running mate. Since then, Palin's supporters have argued that the investigation is politically motivated, and urged lawmakers to turn the matter over to the three-member State Personnel Board, which is appointed by the governor and charged with handling ethics complaints.
In his presentation to lawmakers, Branchflower revealed evidence that the governor's office interceded to try to have Wooten's worker's compensation claim denied.
An employee at a company that handles such claims for the state, Harbor Adjustment Service, told Branchflower that the company's owner said "the governor's office wanted the claim denied."
One of the subpoenas issued Friday was for the company's owner, Murlene Wilkes. Branchflower said he had an informal conversation with Wilkes in August, and believes she was lying when she said she had never been contacted by the governor's office. Wilkes did not immediately return a telephone call.
Monegan says he received repeated e-mails and phone calls from Palin, her husband and her staff expressing dismay over Wooten's continued employment.
One member of Palin's administration was caught on tape discussing personal information about Wooten, raising questions of how he knew those details.
Branchflower also asked for a subpoena for the phone records of one Palin administration official, Frank Bailey. Bailey was recorded calling an Alaska State Trooper lieutenant and discussing confidential information about Wooten, including his job application and worker's compensation claim. In a deposition taken by Palin's attorney, he testified that he never saw Wooten's file, but instead received the information from Todd Palin.
You should really
brush up on politics and your history before coming to disgrace your party and country.
Where did this..
clown GoinGreen come from. There is no such thing as The Bush Doctrine? LOL
These guys are plain ignorant. We're in real trouble.
NY Giants, please.
Thanks John