The McCain train's leaving the tracks

John McCain lies so casually and so sincerely, that reporters, who like to think of themselves as "hard-nosed" and "cynical," are often conned by the Senator. Or, maybe they don't want to hurt McCain's presidential chances because he gives them candy on his plane.

Sam Stein at The Huffington Post has glommed onto a couple more of McCain's misconstructions. I use the word, "misconstruction," advisedly, to give the Senator the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he's not lying; maybe his memory is going and he simply doesn't recall what he has said and done in the recent past. As my mother aged, she could remember in detail events that happened 50 years previously, but she couldn't remember who she talked to ten minutes before.

Yesterday, McCain was in Louisiana and told reporters that he had backed "every investigation" into the government's incompetent response to Hurricane Katrina. That is not true. So either he lied or he misconstrued because he's losing his mind. The fact is that John McCain voted two times against the creation of a commission to investigate the Katrina disaster!

Mr. Stein points out that a couple of months ago, McCain used those two votes as examples of how he was fighting wasteful government spending. Oops. He must not have misconstrued, he must have been outright lying yesterday!

What McCain said last April, was "I will not vote for projects and programs and bills that are laden with pork-barrel projects that waste taxpayer's dollars."


But things get worse for old John. Earlier in the day, a reported asked him if he was familiar with a bill introduced by Senator Obama calling for international divestment from Iran.

McCain said: "No, I am not familiar with it at all. I do not know if it passed the senate or had any hearing or anything else. I had, so, literally thousands and thousands pieces of legislation are proposed each year. I know what he did. He voted against the Iranian revolutionary guard being declared a terrorist organization."

Poor John. Obama's bill was given overwhelming support in the House. A Republican, Dick Shelby is holding it up in the Senate. In fact, as Stein points out, "two McCain surrogates, Sen. Joseph Lieberman and Rep. Eric Cantor, are co-sponsors of Obama's measure despite, on Wednesday, ripping Illinois Democrat for not having the experience to deal with Iran."


The McCain train is leaving the tracks!