McCain: pathetic, phony hypocrite

[Oakland Red]

Your statement about the author is false. He didn't become disillusioned about McCain because of the Keating scandal which nearly destroyed McCain's career in the 1980's. He became disillusioned because he found that McCain was talking out of two sides of his mouth, saying one thing but doing the other.

Cases in point from the article:

As The Washington Post reports, McCain is now “assiduously courting both lobbyists and their wealthy clients, offering them private audiences as part of his fundraising.” He has more lobbyists as fundraisers than any other White House contender, and he allows lobbyists to simultaneously work in his campaign and represent business clients.


While McCain prepared his presidential run in 2005, a bill came up to permit drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). McCain—the “maverick” who voted to prevent ANWR drilling in 2003—sided with the oil industry and reversed his vote. He has since signed on more than a dozen staffers and fundraisers who have represented energy interests, while his presidential campaign has been rewarded with $393,000 from the oil and gas industry.

Likewise, Democrats in 2006 authored legislation to implement a version of Arizona’s clean elections system at the federal level. McCain, who previously told PBS the system could be a national model, “dismissed the proposal with a flat ‘no,’ ” according to The Hill newspaper. As the nonpartisan Public Campaign Action Fund reports, McCain is the only current presidential candidate refusing to support public financing of elections.

Now, rushing to build a war chest, McCain is doing everything short of putting a For Sale sign on his forehead. During a nationwide fundraising tour, he was showered with big donations after defending the lobbyist-written trade policies that have driven down wages. He is sure to raise even more cash as he shows his Keating Five roots when shilling for the financial industry. Last week, approaching the 21st anniversary of that scandal, McCain followed the advice of banking-executive-turned-campaign-adviser Phil Gramm and demanded that Congress oppose new Wall Street regulations in the wake of the credit crisis.

Originally Posted by 70Chip

Hardly. The technique of pretending you were a supporter of a politician only to be SHOCKED when you found out the truth is pretty worn out. The writer claims to have been enamoured of McCain as a straight talking maverick (a narrative the media was pushing in 2000) but then became disallusioned in part over the Keating 5 scandal (happened in the 80s). BTW, the lawyers investigating the Keating thing all said that McCain was basically innocent and should have been exonerated but the other four guys were all Democrats and the Dem leadership who were in charge at that time wanted to have at least one Repulican in the mix so the "scandal" would look bipartisan.

When you watch C-Span there is always that caller who says something to the effect of "I've been a Republican my whole life, but this year I'm voting for the Democrat". After the 50th time you hear it, it sort of loses it's edge. It seems a little -PHONY.