McCain’s self narrative and one that many in the media have been too glad to echo is that McCain is maverick and new get back to basics reformer Republican. Like his maverick image that is all more show then go, List of McCain Fund-Raisers Includes Prominent Lobbyists
But the potential for conflicts of interest are obvious. Several of Mr. McCain’s top fund-raisers, for example, lobby for the telecommunications industry, which regularly does business before the Senate Commerce Committee, where Mr. McCain is a senior member and once served as chairman.
Kirk Blalock, of the lobbying firm Fierce, Isakowitz & Blalock, leads Mr. McCain’s young professional group and has raised over $250,000 for him; his clients include Sprint Nextel and Viacom.
Kyle McSlarrow, chief of the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the lobbying arm for the cable industry, has raised over $100,000 for Mr. McCain. He and others in the cable industry recently butted heads with Mr. McCain over a proposal that would allow customers to pick and choose which channels they received.
McCain has no idea what its like NOT to have public healthcare, but he’s sure its a bad thing, John McCain feels your health care pain
STEPHANOPOULOS: What’s wrong with government — what’s wrong with government-run health care?
MCCAIN: And we continue to have these debates — what’s wrong with it? Go to Canada. Go to England and you can find out what’s wrong with it. Governments don’t make the right decisions. Families make the right decisions.
STEPHANOPOULOS: One of the points Mrs. Edwards made in the Wall Street Journal, she said that your whole life, you had government health care. You were the son of a Naval officer, a Naval officer, now a member of Congress. And her point is, why shouldn’t every American be able to get the kind of health care that members of Congress get or members of the military get?
Go to Canada and ask someone? What does this guy have the mental age of an eight year old. If he isn’t capable of a cogent explanation what does that say about his ability to handle the complexities of being president in the 21st century.
We’re up to 12 billion dollars a month, going on year six and the Iraqis finally take Basra on their own – nope wait they had the American and British air support and artillery blow the area to hell and back then they secured the area. Then that pinnacle of personal bravery Condi Rice, pausing to adjust her gun belt and saber calls Sadr a coward. Republicans bloggers in their parent’s basements across America are yelling you tell’em Condi. A nice military show, but was that the kind of action the administration should be taking at this point if they really, well you know, have some idea of what they’re doing and really want Iraq to come to together politically.
Can the grand old fart of Conservatism John Podhoretz and his sycophantic Max Boot read English. What The Times Was Up To, John Podhoretz – 04.20.2008 – 9:56 PM
Max Boot’s post earlier today about the preposterous New York Times story on the relationship between the Pentagon and former-military men-turned-war-pundits was spot on. I think, based on many years of experience working at various newspapers, that there is an explanation for the extreme length — 7800 words — of the story and the fact that it manages to find nothing more than an effort by the Pentagon to get good coverage. The Times thought it was on to something very big, ended up with something very small, and then took what little they had and tried to make a silk purse from the sow’s ear that was reporter David Barstow’s investigation.
Very predictable. When faced with overwhelming evidence of the Pentagon, the administration, and so-called media military analyst were joined at the hip in a misinformation campaign to mislead the American public the likes of which put Pravda to shame just pretend its much ado about nothing. Some of the key findings in the New York Times story
*”Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they were asked to assess on air.”
* “These business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves.”
*”Analysts have been wooed in hundreds of private briefings with senior military officials, including officials with significant influence over contracting and budget matters.”
“They have been given access to classified intelligence.” (This revelation demands immediate hearings by relevant Congressional committtees.)
* Members of this group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated…One trip participant, General Nash of ABC, said some briefings were so clearly ‘artificial’ that he joked to another group member that they were ‘on the George Romney memorial trip to Iraq,’ a reference to Mr. Romney’s infamous claim that American officials had ‘brainwashed’ him into supporting the Vietnam war during a tour there in 1965.”
*”Again and again, records show the administration enlisted analysts as a rapid reaction force to rebut what it viewed as critical coverage, some of it by the networks’ own Pentagon correspondents.”
General Nash, one of the Conservative movement purportedly greatest intellectuals just called you a liar. Expect a counter-top inspection from the wing-nuts any minute.
The Long Goodbye 