DOUBLE TALK EXPRESS HAS A MAJOR PROBLEM WITH LOBBYSTS

Actually, they have two major problems with lobbyists. The first and most obvious one is that over 100 crooked, sleazy lobbyists are working for the McCain campaign, sucking up money for the candidate who they have every reason to know will serve the interests of their corporate clients rather than the interests of everyday Americans. Fire The Lobbyists has a cure new video clip up today that summarizes this aspect of McCain's lobbyist problem:



McCain and his disgraceful relationships with the very bottom of the barrel of the Washington lobbyists-- many of whom lobby on behalf of foreign governments-- is finally starting to make it into the mainstream media, although it will probably take another few weeks before TV "news" picks up on it. It's ironic that McCain has been running around like a chicken without a head squawking about how Obama would "appease" foreign dictators when it looks like millions and millions of dollars are being funneled into McCain's campaign from every fascist dictatorship on the planet-- via his and their mutual employees-- especially the Saudis, the junta in Myanmar, Russia, China and at least a dozen other countries. One of McCain's two top staffers, lowlife sleazebag lobbyist Charlie Black, seems to be acting as a funnel for massive amounts of money from the Russian Mafia to McCain. McCain knows better than to have people like this around him, let alone driving the bus! But does he care?

Meanwhile, the other lobbyist problem is that the lobbyists don't think McCain, is willing to toss some of them off-- and under-- the bus to save his own ass... and they're getting angry.

Five lobbyists have been shown the door of McCain’s Virginia campaign headquarters in the past week, including Tom Loeffler, who is largely credited with keeping the senator’s primary campaign financially afloat long enough to capture the Republican presidential nomination.

“If it was OK to have these people working for you in February, why is it not OK today?” asked one Republican lobbyist who counts a friend among the new McCain outcast class.

The timing, motivation and even the details of the policy itself all are the subject of debates and consternation this week at water coolers, in restaurants and on conference calls on K Street.

“McCain’s self-righteous [expletive] has caught up with him. Now he’s got himself in a jam,” said another Republican lobbyist who asked to remain anonymous because he is a campaign volunteer. “He’s got to change the subject back to economic growth and taxation and the war on terror.”

And there’s this thought from another McCain supporter: “I find it a little offensive. It was good enough to get my $2,300 donation. If we’re not good enough, then send my check back. It pisses me off.”

The irony of this is that, despite the connivance of the corporate media-- particularly of shills like David Broder and Chris Matthews-- to create an image of McCain as "Mr. Clean," his entire career in politics-- from Day One-- has always been marked by gross corruption beyond even acceptable Washington standards. McCain has always been corrupt and always attempted to hide under a patina of being an ethics champion, even persuading Russ Feingold to let him sponsor Feingold's reform legislation and have his name on it first.

Senatorial courtesy has prevented most members of the Senate from calling McCain out on his outrageous behavior. I was really happy to see Obama finally calling a spade a spade today-- and exposing McCain's little charade-- while he was campaigning in Tampa:

"Now, we need a president who sees the government not as a tool to enrich friends and high-priced lobbyists, but as the defender of fairness and opportunity for every American. And let me be fair about this. Now, John McCain has agreed with me on some of the steps we need to make our government more ethical and accountable. Almost a decade ago, he offered a bill that, in his words, would ban a candidate from paying registered lobbyists. Let me repeat that. This-- ten years ago, John McCain offered a bill that said he would ban a candidate from paying registered lobbyists. And he did this because he said that having lobbyists on your campaign was a conflict of interest. This is what he said ten years ago.

"Well, I'll tell you that John McCain then would be pretty disappointed with John McCain now, because he hired some of the biggest lobbyists in Washington to run his campaign. And when he was called on it, his top lobbyists actually had the nerve to say, 'The American people won't care about this.' Well, I think the American people do care about it and I know they have a clear choice in this election: we can either have a election in which we are taking on the root causes of special interests dominated politics in Washington or we can ignore the problem and we can wake up four years from now and still be talking about an energy crisis and still be talking about a health care crisis and still be talking about a tax code that's not fair to you. I don't want to wake up that way, neither do you. That's a choice we've got in this election. We're going to change how politics is done in Washington."