McCain Forgets That He Railed Against His Own Pork

Washington Independent:

On the campaign trail, Sen. John McCain frequently decries earmarks and pork-barrel legislation, proudly bragging that he has never requested a single earmark for his home state of Arizona. However, a news article and a scathing editorial from The Arizona Republic during his first-term as the state's junior senator reveal that McCain did, in fact, go outside the normal legislative process to secure funding for at least one pet project for Arizona. He also supported appropriations for at least two more -- three projects that, much to his embarrassment, he later railed against as "pork."

In 1991, McCain was embroiled in the The Keating Five Scandal, in which he and four other senators were implicated in a corruption investigation connected to the Savings & Loan crisis. Though McCain was cleared of wrongdoing in August, he was reprimanded by the Senate Ethics Committee for exercising poor judgment for meeting with federal regulators on behalf of one of his major fund-raisers, Charles Keating Jr., the chairman of Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. Keating would spend four and a half years in prison for fraud and racketeering following the bank's failure.

Facing re-election the following year, McCain sought to salvage his damaged reputation by re-branding himself as a champion of government reform and a foe of wasteful spending. According to the article from The Arizona Republic dated June 14, 1991, McCain joined with two other senators and nine House members June 13 to introduce legislation to rescind more than $1 billion in funding for 325 federal pork-barrel projects in the 1991 budget, but had not yet been spent.

Read the whole story: Washington Independent

Comments

[Obamlatina]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow88BF-Qy3A

[deliriousgod]

that sounds painful

[GiggidyGeshmoygen]

According to an article from The Arizona Republic dated June 14, 1991, McCain joined with two other senators and nine House members June 13 to introduce legislation to rescind more than $1 billion in funding for 325 federal pork-barrel projects in the 1991 budget that had not yet been spent.

“Listen, my friends, the system is broke, and this is the way to start fixing it,” McCain announced at a news conference. “There may be legitimate projects on this list, but I assure you, they are the exception and not the rule.”
============================================

and 17 years later ???

“Listen, my friends, the system is broke, and this is the way to start fixing it,”

yessirree, johnny mac, you are the change candidate i want to vote for... NOT ! ! !

[DieHardObamaSupporter]

Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.

[Vote For America]

Sept 16 Polling Update
http://voteforamerica.net/editorials/Comments.aspx?ArticleId=57&ArticleName=Poll+Update

Cindy McCain's Fallacious Rebuttal
http://voteforamerica.net/editorials/Comments.aspx?ArticleId=54&ArticleName=Cindy+McCain%27s+Fallacious+Rebuttal

The Red November: An analysis on campaign marketing
http://voteforamerica.net/editorials/Comments.aspx?ArticleId=50&ArticleName=The+Red+November

[Vote For America]

Sept 16 Polling Update
http://voteforamerica.net/editorials/Comments.aspx?ArticleId=57&ArticleName=Poll+Update

Cindy McCain's Fallacious Rebuttal
http://voteforamerica.net/editorials/Comments.aspx?ArticleId=54&ArticleName=Cindy+McCain%27s+Fallacious+Rebuttal

The Red November: An analysis on campaign marketing
http://voteforamerica.net/editorials/Comments.aspx?ArticleId=50&ArticleName=The+Red+November

Obama 264, McCain 274
http://voteforamerica.net/electoral.aspx

[Heavenhelpusall]

McSame and McToken have problems with ethics committees. Is this what makes them soulmates?

[PioneerKing]

"McCain press secretary, Scott Celley, announced three Arizona projects on the list “could be ‘justified’ and ‘would pass muster’ if they went through the traditional process of hearings.”

In an interview, McCain said, “I’m not criticizing the projects, I’m criticizing the process. You can make a big-deal story about John McCain opposing three Arizona projects. I’m sure it will make good copy.”

There was just one problem. McCain had circumvented the “traditional process of hearings” to secure the funding for one of the Arizona pork projects he was now criticizing, and supported the other two.

McCain is wacko - all he is saying is that long as the pork is solicited in open hearings it is kosher.

When Charlie Gibson asked Palin about the lobbyist she hired as Mayor and as Governor to get pork for her home town and for Alaska Palin claimed that her earmarks were not pork because they had been posted on the internet. What a bunch of crap - but Gibson let McCain/Palin get away with that kind of absurd crap.

The truth is that Palin's earmarks were not posted on the internet until after she had been selected to be McCain's running mate.

[rabprevent]

THAT IS CALL DOUBLE TALK, HE IS FULL OF BS AND CONTINUES TO LIE TO THE CITIZENS OF THIS COUNTRY!

I WILL VOTE NO TO MCCAIN AND ALL HIS CRONIES!!!!!!!!!

[Paul Peete - Huffpost Blogger]

The man is losing it! But he has been a Senator For Sale all along! Just read this piece that I put together from all of the MSM reports through his career.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-peete/mccain-for-sale-to-the-hi_b_126375.html

[Belleweathered]

When he says , "never again" he means telling the truth "...never again".

[SurferKit]

McCain’s claim that he’s pork-free is false.
In 2006, McCain teamed up with fellow Arizona senator Jon Kyl (R) to funnel $10 million toward the University of Arizona for an academic center named after the late Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist. Even Arizona lawmaker, Rep. Jeff Flake (R), said he was planning to “lean against the measure.” The National Taxpayers Union, another traditional McCain ally, questioned why the senator was making federal taxpayers foot the bill for the center.
In 2003, McCain also slipped $14.3 million into a defense appropriations bill to create a buffer zone around Luke Air Force Base in Arizona. As Roll Call reported in 2003, this project violated McCain’s own anti-pork rhetoric:
The only problem is the project to acquire more land near the base was not requested by President Bush or fully authorized by the Senate Armed Services Committee - two of McCain’s criteria for identifying so-called pork.
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/01/06/mccain-earmark/

[LemonMeringue]

McBush and the T0dd-S*rah show do not understand the first rule of successful lying:

Do not lie when the truth will do.

Also...

Ground the lie in some truth to really confuse your audience.

SP is pathological. I think she is incapable of uttering an unembellished truth.

[opinion123]

Correction:

There are old truths that McCain should be better at remembering: "Once you start lying, it's hard to stop." & "The first lie begets another." He would be wise to also teach that to his VP!

[Findley]

Obama camp: Use McCain's ties with Phil Gramm for speeches and ADS in battleground states

For the less tuned in voters -- keep it simple but cite sources! Tell'em to check it out library or google.

For voters more tuned in: In Dec. 2000 Gramm slipped into a bill a 262-page measure called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. written with the help of financial industry lobbyists.

Gramm said the measure would ensure that neither the SEC nor the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) got into the business of regulating newfangled financial products called swaps—and would thus "protect financial institutions from overregulation" and "position our financial services industries to be world leaders into the new century."

Also the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act repealed the old regulations and a year later Swiss Bank UBS gobbled up brokerage house Paine Weber. Two years later, Gramm settled in as a vice chairman of UBS’s new investment banking arm. Later, he became a major player in its government affairs operation. According to federal lobbying disclosure records, Gramm lobbied Congress, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department about banking and mortgage issues in 2005 and 2006. During those years, the mortgage industry pressed Congress to roll back strong state rules that sought to stem the rise of predatory tactics used by lenders and brokers to place homeowners in high-cost mortgages.