Two High Profile Endorsements For Swing Voters To Consider

Obama proud to have the support of Lilly Ledbetter; McCain hides from Lady de Rothschild endorsement

McCain's opposition to regulating the excesses of capitalism goes back to the beginning of his career. And he's never wavered-- until yesterday. Now he and Sarah Palin are all about regulating the evil Wall Street. Let's look at the facts, the facts about a man who boasted to the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal last year that they would never meet a bigger deregulator than himself. That was the ole Straight Talkin' McCain. Now he's shifting like a chameleon who just saw four boomslang and vine snakes approaching from each direction and a Cuckoo Hawk circling overhead.

Today's Washington Post goes easy on his flip flop on regulation but even they can't deny his very clear and consistent record.

A decade ago, Sen. John McCain embraced legislation to broadly deregulate the banking and insurance industries, helping to sweep aside a thicket of rules established over decades in favor of a less restricted financial marketplace that proponents said would result in greater economic growth.

Now, as the Bush administration scrambles to prevent the collapse of the American International Group (AIG), the nation's largest insurance company, and stabilize a tumultuous Wall Street, the Republican presidential nominee is scrambling to recast himself as a champion of regulation to end "reckless conduct, corruption and unbridled greed" on Wall Street.

It's as absurd as the idea of McCain, whose campaign is the most lobbyist-driven political campaign in American history, will get into power and somehow banish lobbyists-- unless he means take them all off K Street and install them in the Executive Branch. Among the several hundred lobbyists doing all they can to elect McCain are 84 who worked for the financial services industries he's been running all around denouncing for two days! He's taken over $24 million from the finance, insurance, and banking industies, over $14 million of which has flooded into his campaign coffers since he clinched the Republican nomination in March.

But if you think this is the only Double Talk Express hypocrisy on parade today you must have not gotten any of the e-mails about the McCain campaign's newest celebrity backer, Lady de Rothschild, who has claimed Obama is "an elitist" and that she's backing McCain. This is the height of absurity. Here we have one of the most detested and snobbish women in the entire word, someone known as an icon of Greed, Selfishness and decadent self indulgence, calling a working class hero an "elitist" on the day he was endorsed by Lilly Ledbetter, the Alabama woman whose fight for equal pay led her to the United States Supreme Court and inspired the 2007 fair pay legislation that bears her name. Lilly Ledbetter is an all-American heroine, Baroness de Rothschild is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with conservatism and right-wing politics. Ledbetter:

"There is only one candidate who has stood up for women like me.  Who has consistently fought to help women who are working hard every day for our families and aren't being paid fairly. That's why I'm proud to endorse Barack Obama for president of the United States.  The priorities of the Obama-Biden ticket are clear.  Senator Obama and Senator Biden will stand up for families like mine."

Lilly Ledbetter, unlike Lady Rothschild, isn't looking to be appointed ambassador to the Court of St James. And she wasn't part of throwing a London fundraiser for McCain that the FEC is investigating for illegal in-kind contributions from foreign nationals seeking to influence an American election. As my friend Marcy said "Does Lady Rothschild think Obama is elitist because he will make rich people like her pay her fair share of taxes?"

McCain can have Lady de Rothschild and her whole repulsive parasitic ilk. Barack Obama should be proud to have a woman of character and substance like Lilly Ledbetter standing with him-- and the Will Galison Orchestra: