Just wanted to keep a little list about how McCain has shown his true colors over the years. So far he has shown that he has poor judgement, his influence can be bought, and he is a hypocrite... not a great choice for president...
McCain was one of five senators who were bribed (through campaign contributions) by Charles Keating and subsequently attempted to quash the investigation of Keating's failed S&L.
Wikipedia wrote:
In 1989, the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association of Irvine, Calif., collapsed. Lincoln's chairman, Charles H. Keating Jr., was faulted for the thrift's failure. Keating, however, told the House Banking Committee that the [Federal Home Loan Bank Board] and its former chief Edwin J. Gray were pursuing a vendetta against him. Gray testified that several U.S. senators had approached him and requested that he ease off on the Lincoln investigation. It came out that these senators had been beneficiaries of $1.3 million (collective total) in campaign contributions from Keating. Lincoln Savings and Loan's collapse is said to have cost taxpayers $3.4 billion
McCain has bad judgement and can be bought. McCain was romantically involved with lobbyist Vicki Iseman. Iseman lobbied on behalf many
New York Times wrote:
companies for whom Mr. McCain's commerce committee was pivotal.
There are a couple of examples of McCain doing Iseman's bidding in letters sent to the F.C.C.
McCain used his future eligibility for federal matching funds as collateral on a loan:
Andrew Sullivan wrote:
Campaign finance laws ask candidates to make a choice: either you take federal money, in which case you are subject to a number of restrictions, or else you don't take it, in which case you are not. Getting a loan by using the matching funds you have not yet received as collateral is a way of trying to have it both ways: essentially, you get to spend your matching funds now, but because the money did not literally come from the government, you can delay a decision about whether or not to accept the restrictions that go with them until later.
Shows incompetence and corruption:
Thomas Cook wrote:
I filed the challenge yesterday [to McCain's right to be on the ballot] because my hand count numbers had the petition total at 496. The state GOP operation told the Washington Times that they "still had some coming in," which seems slightly different than the story they told Maureen Groppe. Regardless, the bottom line is that they filed on the 12th without the 500 needed signatures, and it had been over a week with no new signatures turned in.
John McCain said Bush should veto a bill that would bar the CIA from using torture on terror suspects and also voted against the very same bill. McCain was tortured in Vietnam, but will say anything (who knows what he really believes) to shore up his right wingnut voter base.
03/18/08: McCain lies
This time he was lying about Iran, Iraq and al-Qaeda.
John McCain wrote:
[It is] common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that's well known. And it's unfortunate.
He repeated this lie several times and was eventually told at one point by Sen. Lieberman (in a whisper) that the statement was false.
More lying about Iraq.
John McCain wrote:
It was al-Sadr that declared the ceasefire, not Maliki. ... With respect, I don’t think Sadr would have declared the ceasefire if he thought he was winning. Most times in history, military engagements, the winning side doesn’t declare the ceasefire. The second point is, overall, the Iraqi military performed pretty well. ... The military is functioning very effectively.
Too bad for McCain that the Maliki government brokered the ceasefire to a conflict caused by the very same government. So the government starts a fight, loses and brokers a ceasefire... that's apparently a pretty effective military campaign for McCain?
Again McCain shows his true pandering self. As recently as 2005, he thought we should leave Iraq and have as minimal footprint as possible... now 100 years McCain has a much different point of view. I don't think it matters what his true point of view is anymore, McCain will say anything to get votes.
John McCain wrote:
"I would hope that we could bring them all home. I would hope that we would probably leave some military advisers, as we have in other countries, to help them with their training and equipment and that kind of stuff.
Chris Matthews wrote:
You've heard the ideological argument to keep U.S. forces in the Middle East. I've heard it from the hawks. They say, keep United States military presence in the Middle East, like we have with the 7th Fleet in Asia. We have the German...the South Korean component. Do you think we could get along without it?
John McCain wrote:
I not only think we could get along without it, but I think one of our big problems has been the fact that many Iraqis resent American military presence, and I don't pretend to know exactly Iraqi public opinion. But as soon as we can reduce our visibility as much as possible, the better I think it is going to be.
interesting
Matt,
Interesting stuff about McCain. I wasn't aware of half of this.
Eats Babies
I've also heard that McCain eats small children as soon as they've left the womb...It's unbelievable.