The Unexplored Character Issue-- Is John McCain Fit For Public Office At All?

It would be no news at all to DWT readers that even if McCain escaped doing hard prison time for his Keating Five corruption, he certainly should have been kicked out of the revolting Gentleman's Club known as the United States Senate for accepting massive bribes from bank swindler and close family friend Charles Keating. Someone just told The New Republic, which is trumpeting exclusive evidence you've never heard. A little late to do any good and probably less effective than the right's Aunt Zeitini Onyango smearorama, which started at Murdoch's London Times and then got picked up moments later by Murdoch's Fox News (thanks, Bill Clinton!) and the less and less relevant Drudge. Soon the GOP bottom feeders thought Xmas had come early. These kinds of last minute revelations don't do much, other than motivate the base a bit. That said, let's get back to figuring out why McCain was never punished for his role in the bank swindle that cost American taxpayers billions of dollars and is never held accountable for any of the crap that would have ended almost anyone else's political career-- or do you think Auntie Zeitini is more relevant to something?

The Keating Five Scandal is not just about McCain's "poor judgment" (as he likes to paint it) or about the unpleasantness of too much deregulation (as the media has painted it of late); it's about McCain, the crooked political hack who gets away with everything always-- and how he does it.

One day in early March 1986, John McCain, an Arizona congressman, sat down to write a letter. McCain had heard that a long-time friend and donor, Charles Keating, was upset for being listed as a member of McCain's campaign finance committee when a more prominent position would seem more appropriate. So McCain apologized. Needlessly it turned out, for "Charlie," as he signed his letter, would reply a few days later: "John, don't be silly. You can call me anything...I'm yours until death do us part."

Three years later, McCain and four other senators would be called to the carpet for this loyalty, which was accompanied by a total of $1.3 million in contributions from Keating. Senators Alan Cranston, Dennis DeConcini, John Glenn, John McCain, and Donald Riegle were being investigated by the Senate Ethics Committee for helping Keating's company, Lincoln Savings and Loan, resist regulators. That lack of regulation precipitated Lincoln's collapse that year--part of the larger savings-and-loan collapse--at a cost of about $3 billion to the federal government.

The 14th month Senate Ethics Committee whitewash gave McCain a wrist slap. The committee has always been a bipartisan tool set up by senators to protect themselves. As far as the Ethics Committee is concerned, convicted felon Ted Stevens is a member in good standing and as worthy as... John McCain. But the whitewash was not the only investigation into McCain's bribery scandal.

There were two other probes at the time that got barely any public attention--both of which largely focused on McCain himself. These were probes into illicit leaks about the proceedings of the Ethics Committee--leaks that repeatedly benefited McCain and hurt his Keating Five colleagues. One of those senators described the leaks at the time as a "violation of ethical behavior at least as serious as anything of which we senators have been accused."

The leaks, if they were coming from a senator, were also illegal. All five senators--including McCain--had testified under oath and under the U.S. penal code that the leaks did not come from their camps. The leaks were also prohibited by rules of the Senate Ethics Committee; according to the rules of the Senate, anyone caught leaking such information could face expulsion from the body. These, then, were not the usual Washington disclosures: Discovered, they could have stopped the career of any Washington politician in his tracks.

The two investigations into the leaks suggested McCain's involvement but were officially inconclusive. New evidence, obtained in recent weeks, again points back to the McCain camp. The investigator of those leaks now says that he does not doubt that they came from McCain or his team. A reporter who possessed evidence in the Keating case now says he believes that McCain was the source and got away with it. Finally, a senator who has emerged as a key backer of McCain's presidential campaign turns out to have authored a letter stating flatly that McCain was the source of the damning leaks. Put together, a large record of evidence now points in the direction of Senator McCain. Far from McCain's reputation of putting "country first," these leaks depict a formidable politician willing to go through great lengths to maintain his standing. More than McCain's relationship with Keating, it is the story of the Keating investigation leaks that voters should know.

...Essentially, the leaks deflected public attention away from McCain and toward his colleagues. One leak, the week of DeConcini and Riegle's appearances before the Committee in October, 1990, described the probe against them as having "broadened," and accused Riegle, then Banking Committee chairman, of improper regulatory intervention. Neither part was true, yet the leak ricocheted in the press instantly. One headline from the Washington Post blared, "Panel Reveals Riegle-Keating Meetings; Senator Said to Have Maintained Contact After Start of S&L Probe," and another from the Los Angeles Times read, "Panel Action is Seen as Prelude to a Full-Scale Investigation of Sens. Cranston, DeConcini and Riegle." Meanwhile, approval ratings for Riegle and DeConcini began to tank in their home states. Later on, the leaks investigation would conclude that the leak "[could] only be described" as an attempt to "influence the deliberations on DeConcini and Riegle."

The "character issue" in this election hasn't even been seriously looked at. McCain's character was masterfully painted by his hype machine to leave out all the reams of unpleasantness and concentrate on the self-serving fairytale of his service in Vietnam. John McCain isn't fit to hold any public office, let alone the presidency.

That said... this might be worth paying a little attention to and retaining for the next couple of days-- just in case the Republicans plan to fly in the face of every indication of a massive landslide and actually steal another one:

The Republican Culture Of Corruption Is Back

Well... it never went away and it is certainly not confined to Republicans. It's the all pervasive, never-ending stench of Washington and the political class and the type of characters drawn to politics-- be it a Tom DeLay or a Rahm Emanuel. But to the general public, that Culture of Corruption has been an albatross around Republican necks, not Democratic necks and the conviction of the most senior Republican in the Senate, Ted Stevens, brings the whole ugly mess-- the Duke Cunninghams, the Tom Delays, the Bob Neys, the Jack Abramoffs, Jerry Lewis, Conrad Burns, Tom Feeney, Virgil Goode, Katherine Harris, John Doolittle, Dirty Dick Pombo, Denny Hastert, Gary Miller, Charlie Taylor, even Mark Foley (a different kind of corruption)-- back into play. Oh... and Don Young.

So while John McCain and the Republican Party are struggling to hold on in "sure-thing," "in-the-bag" red states like North Carolina, Virginia and, now, Montana, far off Alaska eases into the national focus. It isn't a story the Republican Party wants anyone looking at.

Alaska's senior GOP politicians, Ted Stevens and Don Young, are-- Inside the Beltway world-- prominent national figures, although each has long been a personification of pork, earmarks and corruption. Alaska's primary airport is currently named for Ted Stevens but the Bridge to Nowhere is what pops into most minds when either his or Young's name is brought up. But the two of them-- albeit on top of a systemic pyramid of corruption-- are just the garbage in plain sight. The entire, all-powerful Republican political establishment in Alaska is rotten to the core. Dozens of elected officials are either rotting in prison, awaiting sentencing or trial or under investigation. "Bipartisan" in Alaska refers to the few Democrats who were invited into the GOP schemes to enrich the political class. And then there's the reformer, maverick governor-- naive, religion-obsessed small town mayor Sarah Palin who liked the idea of "cleaning things up, although appears to have had substituting her own regime of small town corruption and nepotism for the Big Oil brand that had turned Alaska into one of the country's ethics cesspools.

Yesterday a spokesman for the Alaska Republican Party, McHugh Pierre urged Republicans to "continue to support Sen. Stevens. We need to vote for him because a vote for him is a vote for a conservative candidate, a Republican who best represents the interests and beliefs of Alaskans. ... We don't know what happens in the future. But if you don't want Mark Begich, you vote for Ted Stevens." The entire Republican political establishment, rotten to the core, is standing behind Stevens:

Senator Lisa Murkowski, herself in ethical hot water and the daughter of one of the few politicians in contemporary history considered as corrupt as Stevens himself: "Ted Stevens is an honorable, hardworking Alaskan who has served our state well for as long as we have been a state....Ted has asked for Alaskans and his Senate colleagues to stand with him as he pursues his legal rights. He stood with Alaskans for 40 years, and I plan to continue to stand with him."

Rep. Don Young, Stevens' longtime partner in crime, likely to lose his seat a week from today and likelier still to soon face trial, conviction and prison himself: "I'm deeply disappointed. It surprises me. I don't think he had a jury of his peers. That's the way it goes. I'm sure there will be an appeal. If you watched the conduct of the court with the one juror leaving and going out and, of course, the actions of the prosecutors themselves, there definitely will be an appeal, and it will go for a long period of time."

McCain's campaign wrote a cagier and slicker response for Palin to mouth:

"This is a sad day for Alaska and for Sen. Stevens and his family. The verdict shines a light on the corrupting influence of the big oil service company that was allowed to control too much of our state. ... As governor of the state of Alaska, I will carefully monitor this situation and take any appropriate action as needed. In the meantime, I ask the people of Alaska to join me in respecting the workings of our judicial system. I'm confident Sen. Stevens will do what's right for the people of Alaska."

But although her "monitoring" may remind people of Bush's inability to take any remedial actions whatsoever, leading to his cataclysmic popularity crash, it is what the McCain wordsmiths left out of Palin's statement that is most glaring. Not a word from the maverick, religious reformer about the fact that a convicted felon is up for re-election in 7 days. She doesn't give a speech ever in which she doesn't invoke maverickness and her and her runningmate's "well known" battles against "our own party." That's an empty charade and her response to Stevens conviction just proves it was just another in a series of gimmicks that defines the tragic presidential campaign of John W. McCain.

Personally McCain and Stevens have long loathed each other and this morning McCain tried to further distance his sinking campaign from Stevens' corruption scandal.

"Yesterday, Senator Ted Stevens was found guilty of corruption. It is a sign of the health of our democracy that the people continue to hold their representatives to account for improper or illegal conduct, but this verdict is also a sign of the corruption and insider-dealing that has become so pervasive in our nation's capital.

"It is clear that Senator Stevens has broken his trust with the people and that he should now step down. I hope that my colleagues in the Senate will be spurred by these events to redouble their efforts to end this kind of corruption once and for all."

McCain staffers have taken to referring to Palin as a whack job but it isn't the lunacy and bizarre political extremism that are likely to damage the ticket most in the next seven days. It's her ties to the aforementioned Culture of Corruption.

This Ted Stevens fiasco is baggage of the McCain camp's own choosing. Before they added Sarah Palin to the ticket, Alaska was anything but Main Street America. Under the old rules, Steven's corruption scandal could well have blown over as a parochial scandal of the great, oily North.

But since picking Palin, McCain & Co. have staked out Alaska as the living, beating heart of American authenticity. And so, today, Ted Steven's felonious betrayal of the public trust is going to allow Democrats to campaign like it's 2006-- against the Republican "culture of corruption" that proved so electorally toxic to the GOP two years ago.

Let's remember that the McCain camp knew in late July that Stevens was under indictment and demanding a speedy trial that would put Alaska's frontier ethics front-and-center in the days before the election.

And yet, thanks to a vetting free Veepstakes, in August the campaign chose Palin, who not only owes her governorship to Stevens' throaty endorsement, but as recently as 2005 served as the director of "Ted
Stevens Excellence in Public Service" 527 group.

...So here's my question: If Sarah Palin was such an all-American maverick, what was she doing palling around with a suspected felon like Ted Stevens?

It may be a lot of people's question.

Is It Reasonable To Keep Referring To McCain's Spotty Military Record As "Heroic"-- Or Even Honorable?

Congressional Quarterly's daily publication, CQPolitics is one of the most nonpartisan sources of political information you can find. I've long wondered why the mainstream media has refused-- steadfastly refused-- to take a serious look at the disgraceful military record McCain has dolled up and ridden to national prominence. I know it's a lazy Saturday, but CQPolitics has finally dragged the one-eyed old aunt in the attic down into the livingroom-- with her rocking chair. They link to the phenomenal Rolling Stone feature by Tim Dickinson, Make-Believe Maverick that spills the beans on McCain's real military record, the one you never hear about from his pals in the media. I suspect that many CQPolitics readers will get into their offices on Monday, look at the story and flip out. Re: Rolling Stone:

It portrays him running from his burning jet on the Forrestal’s deck and virtually hiding in the carrier’s ward room while others died fighting the ferocious fire and exploding ordnance. In all, 133 sailors died in the tragedy.

Publicly, McCain’s campaign has ignored the story. It also declined to respond to my requests by phone and e-mail for a comment on the story’s accuracy.

Likewise, it has not responded to slashing blogs circulating intensely on the Web that offer an even darker view of the Forrestal incident.

According to these accounts, McCain, whose A4-E Skyhawk was queued up in a line of jets waiting to take off, “wet started” his engine, a prank designed to startle a trailing pilot with a flame of exploding kerosene.

Normally, it’s a harmless, common stunt by “cowboy pilots.” But on this occasion the exploding kerosene caused a six-foot long Zuni rocket under the trailing pilot’s wing to launch across the flight deck.

“[It] ripped through the fuel tank of McCain’s aircraft,” Dickinson writes. “Hundreds of gallons of fuel splashed onto the deck and came ablaze. Then: Clank. Clank. Two 1,000-pound bombs dropped from under the belly of McCain’s stubby A-4 . . . into the fire.”

McCain rolled out of his cockpit onto the deck and ran for his life, Dickinson writes.
“Just then, one of his bombs ‘cooked off,’ blowing a crater in the deck and incinerating the sailors who had rushed past McCain with hoses and fire extinguishers.”

But according to historian Mary Hershberger, writing on the liberal Truthdig.com site, McCain panicked.

“Some of those who were on the Forrestal and other persons familiar with the ordnance told me that because the rocket did not hit McCain’s craft, only actions by the pilot could have caused any bomb to fall from McCain’s Skyhawk,” wrote Hershberger...

It has always been clear that McCain caused the accident on the Forrestal but it was even more thoroughly whitewashed and covered up than his role in the Keating Five Scandal. Sailors have been saying that he would have been killed on the spot by survivors if the Navy hadn't gotten him off the burning ship immediately. Mainstream media refuses, adamantly refuses, to cover the story. And the Democrats are afraid to push it. I mentioned it in passing on a major mainstream website a few days ago and my piece was immediately taken down and they sent me a nice note asking me to edit it out of the story and resubmit it. McCain's main self-professed qualification for the presidency is his military record. But the media won't touch the real record and allows him to continue to describe it in heroic terms. If he wants to talk about his record, there should at least be a real discussion of it. Funny how the media had no problem echoing the lies and distortions Republicans smeared John Kerry with 4 years ago but won't even look at evidence that McCain has deliberately misled the country about his own actvities during the Vietnam War era.

How Did McCain Avoid Prison After Being Caught Taking Bribes From Charles Keating?

Notorious crooks John McCain and Charles Keating partying at Keating's Bahamas estate

McCain has worked very hard for many years to whitewash his involvement in the Keating Five Scandal. I heard some Republican talking heads on Fox the other day screaming hysterically when someone brought it up: "he was cleared, he was cleared, he was cleared." Yet the people involved with the real investigation-- not the Senate Ethics Committee whitewash (which didn't "clear" McCain either but rebuked him for the same kind of bad judgment that is the absolute hallmark of his entire career, both military and political) have all claimed that not only was McCain guilty but that he was the most guilty and the only one who committed a crime-- accepting bribes-- that should have ended his career and sent him to prison.

McCain and the lipsticked pitbull want to talk about some idiotic terrorist who Obama barely knew and who committed a crime when Obama was 8 years old? Why doesn't the media, who have been very much part of the Keating Five whitewash for McCain, take a closer look at that and see what it was really all about instead of parroting Palin's baseless smear of Obama?

And the Obama campaign has made it easier for them today-- launching a new McCain-Keating website, along with all the relevant-- and still shocking-- research, and an easy to digest 13 minute film (below).

This all happen almost two decades ago and I wonder how many DWT readers recall when McCain was caught red-handed taking bribes from the worst bankrobber and swindler in American history, a close family friend, introduced to McCain by his jailbird, Mafiosa father-in-law. It is difficult to understand McCain's (and the GOP's) role in the current Wall Street meltdown without understanding McCain's role in the S&L and the Keating Five scandals.

McCain Campaign Refuses To Address Palin Lies About Obama "Palling Around With Terrorists"

CNN bends so far over backwards to present all sides, that they often-- very often-- will state completely made up propaganda from the GOP and give it an equal footing to objective reality. It's part of the reason I bade my longtime station adieu and migrated to MSNBC earlier this year. But today CNN did yeoman's work in debunking the Lipsticked Pitbull's latest Obama smear, the Bill Ayer's nonsense. Keep in mind that Obama was 8 years old when Ayer's was a member of the Weather Underground and that he long ago denounced Ayers' violence.

Ace McCain, of course, is too chickenshit to repeat this whopper himself so he sends the hapless Mooselini of Wasilla out to repeat it while he hides away in one of his dozen homes and refuses to respond to questions from the press about why his campaign is rolling around in the gutter after promising the nation not to. Palin should still be in her remedial campaign classes learning basic geography so she stops mixing up Afghanistan and Mexico instead of running around the country spreading her lies, poisonous racism and divisiveness on behalf of Senator Chickenshit's increasingly hopeless and desperate campaign to capture the White House.

Harold Meyerson makes a good point in tomorrow's Washington Post about McCain's new all-negative all the time campaign strategy:

... [I]f the McCain people want to rummage through presidential candidates' associations, real or imagined, to turn up figures who threaten to pull down this proud republic, they should begin in-house. Chief among those to whom responsibility attaches for the financial crisis that is plunging the nation into recession is former Texas senator Phil Gramm, McCain's own economic guru.

Gramm was always Wall Street's man in the Senate. As chairman of the Senate Banking Committee during the Clinton administration, he consistently underfunded the Securities and Exchange Commission and kept it from stopping accounting firms from auditing corporations with which they had conflicts of interest. Gramm's piece de resistance came on Dec. 15, 2000, when he slipped into an omnibus spending bill a provision called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (CFMA), which prohibited any governmental regulation of credit default swaps, those insurance policies covering losses on securities in the event they went belly up. As the housing bubble ballooned, the face value of those swaps rose to a tidy $62 trillion. And as the housing bubble burst, those swaps became a massive pile of worthless paper, because no government agency had required the banks to set aside money to back them up.

The CFMA also prohibited government regulation of the energy-trading market, which enabled Enron to nearly bankrupt the state of California before bankrupting itself.

The problem with this exercise, of course, is that Gramm's relationship to McCain is not comparable to the relationships that Ayers or Wright have with Obama. The idea that either Ayers or Wright would have any impact on the workings of an Obama administration is nonsensical. But Gramm and McCain do have an enduring political and economic alliance. McCain chaired Gramm's short-lived presidential campaign in 1996; Gramm is co-chair of McCain's current effort. McCain has called Gramm one of his leading economic counselors and has not repudiated reports that Gramm is on the shortlist to become McCain's Treasury secretary if he's elected.

CNN hoping viewers want to see the actual truth about Palin's lies and smears:



UPDATE: AND WHAT ABOUT PALIN'S PALLING AROUND WITH SECESSIONISTS?

The McCain campaign, through their happy fool Palin, has accused Obama, who was 8 years old when Bill Ayers was a Weatherman, of "palling around with terrorists. McCain himself actually has palled around with terrorists-- right wing kooks and criminals like G. Gordon Liddy-- and Palin more than palled around with terrorists; she has been heavily involved with a militia group and even married one! Would she and McCain pardon Terry Nichols, the right-wing Oklahoma City bomber? He has the same world view they do. Dave Neiwert brings up a great point at Orcinus this morning: Palin is throwing stones from a glass house.

Notably, she nominated one of her local militiamen/John Birch Society types in Wasilla to serve on the city's planning board. This is a big deal to "Patriot" folks, who consider local planning and zoning ordinances to be among the chief signs of creeping socialism, and fight them tooth and nail. Had the Wasilla Council not balked at her nomination, the man no doubt would have wreaked havoc with the city's planning laws and their enforcement.

She also fired the city's museum director at the behest of this character.

And then there were Palin's notable and extended dalliances with the radical secessionist Alaskan Independence Party. In 1992, its members largely supported former militiaman James "Bo" Gritz for president. It has over the years been associated with promoting paranoid "New World Order" conspiracy theories.

McCain Unleashes The Republican Smear Machine-- Obama Talks Health Care For Working Families

The media strategist responsible for Bush's 2000 and 2004 campaigns, Mark McCinnon, isn't exactly shy about negative advertising. And his media campaign for Bush is fondly remembered by Republican partisans as one of the dirtiest, most shameful and nastiest anyone had ever seen. Needless to say, McCain hired him immediately. But after working with McCain for a while-- and after taking a look at the game plan of personal destruction McCain had mapped out for Obama-- McClinton warned that he would resign if Obama was the candidate. And in May, when Obama won the nomination, McKinnon did quit. Mark McKinnon knew that McCain, the sleaziest man to ever run for the presidency, had every intention of running a perverted and racist campaign against Obama and the details started leaking out last spring.

The end will be McCain's claims-- through his arm's length surrogates and the lower end of the GOP media chain (the Limbaughs, Hannitys, O'Reillys, Coulters... that kind of garbage-- that Obama is the antichrist. Today's Washington Post reported that McCain's Operation 24/7 Smear, Smear, Smear is going into effect now. Meanwhile, though, he has that wretched piece of pathetic white trash from Alaska shoveling the shit.

The issues that Americans face are all stacked against McCain and his decades of voting wrong on everything has led to dismal poll results that just keep getting worse and worse by the day. Nothing is working out for him and he's falling back on the one thing he knows he can count on: I'M WHITE-- DON'T VOTE FOR THE NIGGER. That, and Sarah Palin, will be John McCain's political legacy.

With just a month to go until Election Day, McCain's team has decided that its emphasis on the senator's biography as a war hero, experienced lawmaker and straight-talking maverick is insufficient to close a growing gap with Obama. The Arizonan's campaign is also eager to move the conversation away from the economy, an issue that strongly favors Obama and has helped him to a lead in many recent polls.

"We're going to get a little tougher," a senior Republican operative said, indicating that a fresh batch of television ads is coming. "We've got to question this guy's associations. Very soon. There's no question that we have to change the subject here," said the operative, who was not authorized to discuss strategy and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Associations? Like this one?



Sometimes I wish Obama would hit back when McCain and his surrogates and the GOP-owned media lets loose with their smears and lies. But the voters seem to appreciate Obama's calm, solid, decisive campaign and his commitment to sticking with the real issues-- you know, the ones Americans care about and McCain runs from. Today one of Obama's spokespersons addressed McCain's threat to drag the campaign into the gutter:

"On a day after we learned that America lost three-quarters of a million jobs this year and a week after our financial system teetered on the brink of collapse, John McCain and his campaign have announced that they want to 'turn the page' on the economic crisis facing working families and spend the last month of this election launching dishonest, dishonorable character attacks against Barack Obama. We understand that it's not easy for John McCain to defend the worst economic record of our lifetime, but he will have to explain to the people struggling to pay their bills and stay in their homes why he would rather spend his time tearing down Barack Obama than laying out a plan to build up our economy."

So today when McCain's brother Joe (along with rubber stamp Republican Congressman Frank Wolf were rushing around Virginia, accusing people in Arlington and Alexandria of being communists, presumably because polls there show that they have turned away from McCain's reactionary campaign of hatred, bigotry and failure, Obama was talking about the issues that are important to Americans, like health care:

With just a month to go until election day, I know you've all been hearing a lot about politics out here in Virginia. I know you've been seeing a lot of ads, and getting a lot of calls, and reading a lot about this election in the newspaper. But being here today to talk with you about health care-- this isn't about politics for me. This is personal. 
 
I'm thinking today about my mother. She died of ovarian cancer at the age of 53. She fought valiantly, and endured the pain and chemotherapy with grace and good humor. But I'll never forget how she spent the final months of her life. At a time when she should have been focused on getting well, at a time when she should have been taking stock of her life and taking comfort in her family, she was lying in a hospital bed, fighting with her insurance company because they didn't want to cover her treatment. They claimed that her cancer was a pre-existing condition. 
 
So I know something about the heartbreak caused by our health care system. 
 
I know something about the anxiety of families hanging on by a thread as premiums have doubled these past eight years, and they're going into debt, and more than half-– half-- of all personal bankruptcies are caused in part by medical bills. 
 
I know about the frustration of the nearly 40% of small business owners who can no longer afford to insure their employees-- folks who work day and night, but have to lay people off, or shut their doors for good, because of rising health care costs.
 
I know the outrage we all feel about the 45 million Americans who don't have health insurance-- kids who can't see a doctor when they're sick; parents cutting their pills in half and praying for the best; folks who wind up in the emergency room in the middle of the night because they've got nowhere else to turn. 
 
But I also know that this is not who we are.  
 
We are not a country where a young woman I met should have to work the night shift after a full day of college and still not be able to pay the medical bills for her sister who's ill. That's not right-- and it's not who we are.
 
We are not a country where a man I met should have to file for bankruptcy after he had a stroke, because he faced nearly $200,000 in medical costs that he couldn't afford and his insurance company didn't cover. That's not right-- and it's not who we are. 
 
We are not a country that rewards hard work and perseverance with debt and worry. We've never been a country that lets major challenges go unsolved and unaddressed. And we are tired of watching as year after year, candidates offer up detailed health care plans with great fanfare and promise, only to see them crushed under the weight of Washington politics and drug and insurance lobbying once the campaign is over. 
 
That is not who we are. And that is not who we have to be. 
 
We know change is possible. We've seen it across this country as governors and legislatures move ahead of Washington to pass bold health care initiatives on their own. We see people across the spectrum-- doctors and patients, unions and businesses, Democrats and Republicans-- coming together around this issue, because at a time when rising costs have put too many families and businesses on a collision course with financial ruin and left too many without coverage at all, they know that bandaids and half-measures just won't do. 
 
Now I know that at this moment, when we stand in the midst of a serious economic crisis, some might ask how we can afford to focus on health care. Well, let's be clear: the rescue package we just passed in Congress isn't the end of what we need to do to fix our economy-- it's just the beginning.  Because the fundamentals of our economy are still not strong-- contrary to what Senator McCain says. And we've got to address those fundamentals-- and address them right now. 
 
In other words, the question isn't how we can afford to focus on health care-- but how we can afford not to. Because in order to fix our economic crisis, and rebuild our middle class, we need to fix our health care system too. Let's not forget, it's not just small businesses and families who are struggling. Some of the largest corporations in America-- including major American auto manufacturers-- are struggling to compete in the global marketplace because of high health care costs. They're watching their foreign competitors prosper-- unburdened by these costs-- as they struggle to create the good jobs we need to get our economy back on track. 
 
So it's clear that the time has come-- right now-- to solve this problem: to cut health care costs for families and businesses, and provide affordable, accessible health insurance for every American. 
 
And you'd think that anyone running for president would understand this. You'd think any candidate for the highest office in the land would have a plan to achieve these critically important goals. Well, if you think that, you haven't met my opponent, Senator John McCain.
 
Now, it's not that he doesn't care about what people are going through. I just think he doesn't know.  That's the only reason I can think of that he'd propose a health care plan that is so radical, so out of touch with what you're facing, and so out of line with our basic values.
 
Senator McCain has been eager to share some details of his plan-- but not all.
 
He tells you that he'll give you a tax credit of $2,500 per person-- $5,000 per family-- to help you pay for your insurance and health care costs. But like those ads for prescription drugs, you have to read the fine print to learn the rest of the story. 
 
You see, Senator McCain would pay for his plan, in part, by taxing your health care benefits for the first time in history. And this tax would come out of your paycheck. But the new tax credit he's proposing? That wouldn't go to you. It would go directly to your insurance company-- not your bank account. 
 
So when you read the fine print, it's clear that John McCain is pulling an old Washington bait and switch. It's a shell game. He gives you a tax credit with one hand-- but raises your taxes with the other. And recently, after some forceful questioning on TV, he finally admitted that for some Americans-- those with the very best plans-- his tax increase will be higher than his tax credit, and they'll come out behind. 
 
John McCain calls these plans "Cadillac plans." In some cases, it may be that a corporate CEO is getting too good a deal. But what if you're a line worker making a good American car like Cadillac who's given up wage increases in exchange for better health care? Well, Senator McCain believes you should pay higher taxes too. The bottom line: the better your health care plan-- the harder you've fought for good benefits--the higher the taxes you'll pay under John McCain's plan. 
 
And here's something else Senator McCain won't tell you. When he taxes people's benefits, many younger, healthier workers will decide that it's a better deal to opt out of the insurance they get at work-- and instead, go out into the individual market, where they can buy a cheaper plan. Many employers will be left with an older, sicker pool of workers who they can't afford to cover. As a result, many employers will drop their health care plans altogether. And study after study has shown, that under the McCain plan, at least 20 million Americans will lose the insurance they rely on from their workplace. 
 
It's the same approach George W. Bush floated a few years ago. It was dead on arrival in Congress.  But if Senator McCain were to succeed where George Bush failed, it very well could be the beginning of the end of our employer-based health care system. In fact, some experts have said that that's exactly the point of John McCain's plan-- to drive you out of the insurance you have through your employer-- and out into the marketplace, where your family will be given that $5,000 tax credit and told to buy insurance on your own. 
 
A $5,000 tax credit. That sounds pretty good. But what Senator McCain doesn't tell you is that the average cost of a family health care plan these days is more than twice that much-- $12,680. So where would that leave you?  
 
Senator McCain also doesn't tell you that insurance in the individual market isn't just more expensive than insurance you get through work-- it also includes fewer benefits. For example, many of these plans don't cover prescription drugs or pre-natal care. Many don't cover giving birth, so you'd have to pay out of pocket for that-- roughly $6,000. So when you're out there fending for yourself against the insurance companies, you pay more and get less. 
 
Here's another thing Senator McCain doesn't tell you-- his plan won't do a thing to stop insurance companies from discriminating against you if you have a pre-existing condition like hypertension, asthma, diabetes or cancer… the kind of conditions that 65 million working age Americans suffer from-- people from all backgrounds and walks of life all across this country. Employers don't charge you higher premiums for these conditions, but insurers do-- much higher. So the sicker you've been, the more you'll have to pay, and the harder it'll be to get the care you need. 
 
Finally, what John McCain doesn't tell you is that his plan calls for massive deregulation of the insurance industry that would leave families without the basic protections you rely on. You may have heard about how, in the current issue of a magazine, Senator McCain wrote that we need to open up health care to-- and I quote-- "more vigorous nationwide competition as we have done over the last decade in banking." That's right, he wants to deregulate the insurance industry just like he fought to deregulate the banking industry. And we've all seen how well that worked out.
 
It would be equally catastrophic for your health care. Right now, different states have different rules about what insurance companies have to cover. Senator McCain's plan would create a deregulated national market where companies can cherry pick the state where they're based-- and sell plans anywhere in America. 
 
It's the starting gun for a race to the bottom. Insurance companies will rush to set up shop in states with the fewest protections for patients. States where they don't have to cover things like mammograms and other cancer screenings, vaccinations, maternity care, and mental health care.  States where you don't have a right to appeal when your HMO refuses to cover the treatment you need. These are commonsense protections to make sure that you and your doctor-- not insurance company bureaucrats-- are making decisions about your health. And John McCain wants to give insurance companies free reign to avoid them. 
 
And believe it or not, just to top it all off, Senator McCain plans to give the top ten largest insurance companies $2 billion in new tax cuts. 
 
So, anyone want to guess who's running and funding John McCain's campaign? I'll give you a hint. Remember when we tried to fix health care back in the 1990s, and the insurance companies spent millions running misleading ads to scare people into opposing reform? That's right, John McCain has lobbyists for 69 insurance and drug companies and trade groups advising his campaign, writing his policies, and raising his money. Three of them are his top advisors. 
 
And if you think that Washington lobbyists who are working day and night to elect him are doing it to put themselves out of business, well, I've got a bridge in Alaska to sell you.
 
So here's John McCain's radical plan in a nutshell: he taxes health care benefits for the first time in history; millions lose the health care they have; millions pay more for the health care they get; drug and insurance companies continue to profit; and middle class families watch the system they rely on begin to unravel before their eyes. Well, I don't think that's right. I don't think we should settle for health care that works better for drug and insurance companies than it does for hard working Americans. I don't think that's the change we need. We can do better than that.
 
In the end, it's not surprising that Senator McCain's plan isn't a vast improvement on the same failed policies of these past eight years.Remember, Senator McCain voted against expanding the Children's Health Insurance Program-- a program that provides health care for millions of children in need. He voted against protecting Medicare 40 times over the course of his career. And he supported a massive cut in Medicare that would have raised premiums and out-of-pocket expenses for seniors while weakening the care they depend on.
 
In other words, Senator McCain's plan reflects the same bankrupt philosophy he's subscribed to for the past three decades in Washington: take care of the healthy and wealthy, and good luck to everyone else. They call this the Ownership Society, but what it really means is-- you're on your own. Your job doesn't give you health care? The market will fix it. Pre-existing condition? Tough luck. Insurance company won't pay for your treatment? Too bad, you're on your own.
 
This approach hasn't worked these past eight years, it won't work now, and it's time to turn the page.
 
Let me be clear – I don't think government can solve all our problems. But I reject the radical idea that government has no role to play in protecting ordinary Americans. I reject the thinking that says preserving our free market means letting corporations and special interests do as they please. 
 
I know that nothing is more important than the health and well-being of the people you love. And if you work hard and do everything right, you shouldn't live in fear of losing everything because of a fluke of genetics, or a bad diagnosis, or a stroke of bad luck.
 
That's why I believe that every single American has the right to affordable, accessible health care-- a right that should never be subject to Washington politics or industry profiteering, and that should never be purchased with tax increases on middle class families, because that is the last thing we need in an economy like this.
 
I know we can do this. I know what we can accomplish when we come together. I saw it in Illinois, when as a state senator, I brought Republicans and Democrats together to pass legislation that has expanded coverage to more than 150,000 people, including 70,000 children. I helped expand coverage for routine mammograms for women on Medicaid. And we created hospital report cards, so that every consumer could see things like the ratio of nurses to patients, the number of annual medical errors, and the quality of care they could expect at each hospital. 
 
So I reject the tired old debate that says we have to choose between two extremes: government-run health care with higher taxes… or insurance companies without rules denying people coverage.  That's a false choice. It's the same distracting rhetoric that's kept us gridlocked for decades. And we know that neither of these approaches is the answer to this problem. 
 
The real solution is to take on drug and insurance companies; modernize our health care system for the twenty-first century; reduce costs for families and businesses; and finally provide affordable, accessible health care for every American. And that's what I intend to do as President of the United States.
 
Of course, it's easy to have good ideas and make big promises. You've all heard plenty of that these past 20 months. The hard part is coming up with a concrete, detailed plan, and translating that plan into action. So today, I want to take a few minutes to tell you exactly what I plan to do, how I'll get it done, and how I'm going to pay for it. 
 
We'll start by reducing premiums by as much as $2,500 per family-- and we'll do it by taking the following five steps to lower costs throughout our health care system.  
           
First, we'll take on the drug and insurance companies and hold them accountable for the prices they charge and the harm they cause. 
 
We'll start by increasing competition in the insurance industry, and outlawing insurance company discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions. Insurance companies spend $50 billion a year on elaborate efforts to cherry pick the healthiest patients and avoid covering everyone else. I intend to save them a whole lot of time and money by putting an end to this practice once and for all. 
 
And we'll tell the pharmaceutical companies, thanks, but no thanks for the overpriced drugs – drugs that cost twice as much here as they do in Europe and Canada. We'll let Medicare negotiate for lower-prices; we'll stop drug companies from blocking generic drugs that are just as effective, and far less expensive; and we'll allow the safe re-importation of low-cost drugs from countries like Canada.
 
Second, we'll focus on prevention-- on promoting wellness rather than just managing sickness.  Today, we spend less than four cents of every health care dollar on prevention and public health, even though 80 percent of risk factors involved in the leading causes of death are behavior-related-- and thus, preventable. Under my plan, we'll make sure insurance companies cover evidence-based, preventive care services-- weight loss programs, smoking-cessation programs, and other efforts to help people avoid costly, debilitating health problems in the first place.
 
Third, we'll reduce waste and inefficiency by moving from a 20th century health care system based on pen and paper to a 21st century system based on the latest technology. According to one study, just by transferring medical records from yellowing pages in file cabinets to electronic records in computers, we can save $77 billion a year. And we can save lives too by reducing deadly medical errors and ensuring that doctors and nurses spend less time with paperwork and more time with patients.
 
Fourth, we'll reduce the cost of our care by improving the quality of our care. It's estimated that poor quality care-- from medical errors that cause complications to poor hygiene practices that cause infections-- costs up to $100 billion a year. So we'll provide you with information about your hospitals' and providers' quality of care. We'll track which drugs and procedures work best. And we'll reward providers not just for the quantity of services they provide, but for the quality of outcomes for their patients. So you'll get better care, and we'll all save money in the long run.
 
Fifth, we'll reduce costs for businesses and their workers by picking up the tab for some of the most expensive illnesses. Right now, the five percent of patients with the most serious illnesses like cancer and heart disease account for nearly fifty percent of health care costs. Insurance companies devote the lion's share of their expenses to these patients, and then pass the cost on to the rest of us in the form of higher premiums. Under my plan, the federal government will pay for part of these catastrophic cases, which means that your premiums will go down.
 
So that's how we'll cut costs. But that's not enough. Because today, in the year 2008, 45 million Americans still don't have any health insurance at all. This is one of the great moral crises of our time. And it's creating a vicious cycle that affects every last one of us. As premiums rise, more people become uninsured. And every time those uninsured folks walk into an emergency room because it's their only option, insurance companies raise premiums to cover the cost-- a hidden tax of $922 per family. That extra cost means even more people can't afford insurance, so the problem just gets worse. We cannot go on like this. This is not who we are, and this is not who we have to be. 
 
That's why my plan will cover all Americans. And unlike Senator McCain, I'll do it by building on and strengthening-- rather than dismantling-- our current, workplace-based system. So if you have insurance you like, you keep that insurance. If you have a doctor you like, you keep that doctor. The only thing that changes for you is that your health care costs will go down. 
 
But if you don't have insurance, or don't like your insurance, you'll be able to choose from the same type of quality private plans as every federal employee-- from a postal worker here in Colorado to a Congressman in Washington. All of these plans will cover essential medical services including prevention, maternity, disease management and mental health care. No one will be turned away because of a pre-existing condition or illness. If you have children, they will be covered too. If you change jobs, this insurance will go with you. And if you can't afford this insurance, you'll receive a tax credit to help pay for it.   
 
...I know that if we come together, and work together, we can do this.  So many people are counting on us.

McCain's response? More vicious smears and lies. The Post: "Moments after the House of Representatives approved a bailout package for Wall Street on Friday afternoon, the McCain campaign released a television ad that challenges Obama's honesty and asks, 'Who is Barack Obama?' The ad alleges that 'Senator Obama voted 94 times for higher taxes. Ninety-four times. He's not truthful on taxes.' The charge that Obama voted 94 times for higher taxes has been called misleading by independent fact-checkers, who have noted that the majority of those votes were on nonbinding budget resolutions."

A senior campaign official called the ad "just the beginning" of commercials that will "strike the new tone" in the campaign's final days. The official said the "aggressive tone" will center on the question of "whether this guy is ready to be president."

McCain's only positive commercial, called "Original Mavericks," has largely been taken off the air, according to Evan Tracey of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political ads.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's performance at Thursday night's debate embodied the new approach, as she used every opportunity to question Obama's honesty and fitness to serve as president. At one point she said, "Barack Obama voted against funding troops [in Iraq] after promising that he would not do so."

Palin kept up the attack yesterday, saying in an interview on Fox News that Obama is "reckless" and that some of what he has said, "in my world, disqualifies someone from consideration as the next commander in chief."

McCain hinted Thursday that a change is imminent, perhaps as soon as next week's debate. Asked at a Colorado town hall, "When are you going to take the gloves off?" the candidate grinned and replied, "How about Tuesday night?"

Today, the editors of the NY Times fretted that Palin's idea of a role model is Dick Cheney but they should have thought of what kind of a man-- and what kind of a voting record and what kind of character and what kind of judgment he had-- before they endorsed him earlier this year. For the last two weeks, all the Blue America candidates have been telling me their Republican incumbents are turning even more nasty and negative than usual. It isn't just McCain. His whole party would rather wreck the country than give up power. McCain may be the worst, but James Inhofe's vile campaign of lies against state Senator Andrew Rice has been pretty putrid. Rice has tried to stick to the issues and let Inhofe play in the mud by himself. Today Rice answered him back-- and very effectively:

McCain Was A Worse Pilot Than Bush-- And, Yes, He'd Be A Worse President Too

Holiday in Cambodia Turtle Island



Many Democrats and independents have been thinking how much better-- and more Mavericky-- McCain is than your run of the mill Republican and, buying into the well-greased multi-million dollar hype machine that has been at work 24/7 for decades, there is some thought that McCain is somehow "better," or at least less dangerous, than Republicans like Bush, Cheney, and the menagerie of political midgets he beat to win the primary. That would be faulty thinking. There is nothing that has come shooting out at us from the deep, dark bowels of the Republican Party as bad as John McCain.

Put aside for a moment the virtually lockstep rubber stamp voting record, craftily disguised to appear semi-independent on a rare much-ballyhooed occasion or two. And forget for a moment the staggering contempt he must feel for all of us to have, at 72 and gravely ill, named an utterly unqualified and inexperienced small town bigot from Alaska his political successor. (And if it isn't contempt, my friends, then it is surely judgment so egregiously bad as to disqualify him.) Instead let's look at the man who would be president.

Yesterday a Professor of Classic Literature & Arts, Mary-Kay Gamel, stepped forward and gave the kind of powerful personal account of a vacation she had spent with the McCains earlier in the decade. This is not a decent man. This is not a stable man. This is not what his hype machine presents to the American people. I recommend you read Professor Gamel's entire post. Some highlights:

I was irritated at his large ego and his rude behavior towards his wife and other women, but decided he must have some redeeming qualities as he had adopted a handicapped child from Bangladesh. I asked him about this one day, and his response was shocking: "Oh, that was Cindy's idea-- I didn't have anything to do with it. She just went and adopted this thing without even asking me. You can't imagine how people stare when I wheel this ugly, black thing around in a shopping cart in Arizona.

No, it wasn't my idea at all."

I actively avoided McCain after that, but unfortunately one day he engaged me in a political discussion which soon got us on the topic of the active US bombing of Iraq at that time. I was shocked when he said, "If I was in charge, I would nuke Iraq to teach them a lesson." Given McCain's personal experience with the horrors of war, I had expected a more balanced point of view.

I commented on the tragic consequences of the nuclear attacks on Japan during WWII-- but no, he was not to be dissuaded. He went on to say that if it was up to him he would have dropped many more nuclear bombs on Japan.

It was courageous of Professor Gamel to come forward and testify about the Real McCain. I hope it isn't too late and I hope it won't get lost in the shuffle and hype. Tim Dickinson's revelations about McCain, the make-believe Maverick in the latest issue of Rolling Stone may not have the emotional content of Professor Gamel's story, but it is something every American heading for the polling both in November ought to read and consider carefully. Dickinson makes a powerful effort to unmask the real John McCain, "the one who has been hiding in plain sight. It is the story of a man who has consistently put his own advancement above all else, a man willing to say and do anything to achieve his ultimate ambition: to become commander in chief, ascending to the one position that would finally enable him to outrank his four-star father and grandfather."

In its broad strokes, McCain's life story is oddly similar to that of the current occupant of the White House. John Sidney McCain III and George Walker Bush both represent the third generation of American dynasties. Both were born into positions of privilege against which they rebelled into mediocrity. Both developed an uncanny social intelligence that allowed them to skate by with a minimum of mental exertion. Both struggled with booze and loutish behavior. At each step, with the aid of their fathers' powerful friends, both failed upward. And both shed their skins as Episcopalian members of the Washington elite to build political careers as self-styled, ranch-inhabiting Westerners who pray to Jesus in their wives' evangelical churches.

In one vital respect, however, the comparison is deeply unfair to the current president: George W. Bush was a much better pilot.

...In his current campaign, however, McCain has become the kind of politician he ran against in 2000. He has embraced those he once denounced as "agents of intolerance," promised more drilling and deeper tax cuts, even compromised his vaunted opposition to torture. Intent on winning the presidency at all costs, he has reassembled the very team that so viciously smeared him and his family eight years ago, selecting as his running mate a born-again moose hunter whose only qualification for office is her ability to electrify Rove's base. And he has engaged in a "practice of politics" so deceptive that even Rove himself has denounced it, saying that the outright lies in McCain's campaign ads go "too far" and fail the "truth test."

As more and more people start to grapple with who exactly the real McCain is, his poll ratings plummet. Today polls in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania show him trailing Obama so significantly that people are starting to use the word "landslide" again.

Even when a member of the elite media insiders who McCain has cultivated so assiduously over the years, Maureen Dowd, slipped up and let a bit of the cat out of the bag about what kind of a man McCain really is ("a long-tailed rat" who has continued to shamelessly flash "the P.O.W. card to rebut any criticism, no matter how unrelated") an enraged and out of control McCain kicked her off his plane in Pittsburgh and told her to walk home, crowing about her humiliation as a way of showing how independent he is of the very media he used to build his fake reputation. Many members of the media are sorry now that they've been part of the McCain hype machine and have helped cover up the real man and create a myth than many Americans have bought into. This isn't part of the myth:

Did McCain's Keating Five Corruption And Savings And Loan Bailout Lead Directly To His Involvement In The Current Wall Street Meltdown?

With McCain's voting record and his relentless activities on behalf of ideology-driven deregulation, as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, coming into focus because of the Wall Street meltdown and his confused and confusing answers about his culpability, it is probably a good time to go back into McCain's sordid history of corruption and pull back the carefully tacked up curtains of the Keating Five Scandal.

As we mentioned yesterday, the only lessons McCain seems to have learned from a near-death experience with that first scandal, was covering his tracks more carefully and using a media hype machine to paint himself as a "reformer" instead of as the crooked operator he's always been.
He might be able to hide his severe illness-- illness that is likely to make an unprepared and supremely unqualified lunatic fringe kook from Alaska president if McCain wins in November-- under thousands and thousands of dollars in makeup sessions, but he can't hide his voting record and he can't hide the record of lobbyist payments his crooked campaign manager, Rick Davis, has sucked up from every bad actor in the Wall Street meltdown.

Back to the Keating Five Scandal that McCain learned so little from. He was the only real crook in the whole scandal and although the Senate Ethics Committee let him off with an "admonition," the federal regulators, have testified that McCain was the worst crook of the whole lot and the only senator whose actions should have landed him in prison. Had McCain been tried, convicted and imprisoned back then, there's a good chance that admirers and followers of his, like Bob Ney, Duke Cunningham, Tom DeLay, Rick Renzi, John Doolittle, Virgil Goode, and dozens of other crooked Republicans might now have gone down that same road. Please take a look at the video that exposes McCain's involvement:

For McCain's Lobbyists-- Bailout... Or Bail?

Art by McCain's Lobbyists

Over the years I haven't agreed with Newt Gingrich on much but he was correct this morning when he warned Republican members of Congress that the Bush Regime's bailout/corporate giveaway is going to be a dead loser on Election Day Gingrich warned that bipartisan polling shows that Americans do not trust the Bush Regime to do the right thing and that they want Congress to stand up and take responsibility away from them. "[Elected officials] are going to go home and say, ‘I didn’t have any choice’ and people are going to say, ‘Ok, I need to get somebody new who has a choice.’ Because this is really a bad idea.”

The poll, conducted Sept. 16-21 with a 3% margin of error by Democratic pollster Doug Schoen and Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway suggests an overwhelming number of voters do not support the government’s bailout proposal, with 68% of respondents saying they’d rather see the companies go in to bankruptcy even if it harms investors and the stock market versus the 19% who said they preferred government action.

Gingrich said he believes lawmakers who vote for the bailout will face backlash at the ballot box in November and down the road. “I think that this bailout plan is going to break against anybody who votes for it, and I think it’s going to break against them more next time [2010] than this time [2008] and if it passes-- because I think it is going to be a nightmare to implement-- I think it is going to be filled with corruption, inefficiencies, and bureaucracies,” he said.

As Ken pointed out earlier, Bush has dispatched Darth Cheney to Capitol Hill in the role of enforcer. Is it working? After hearing two really extreme, lunatic fringe conservatives from Texas, Joe Barton and Jeb Hensarling, railing against the Bush Regime plan on the radio today, I rushed home to see how the Inside the Beltway media was playing it. (Barton was talking about how Gawd created the world in 7 days and that there was no need to rush into the plan in 5-- wackorama all the way.) Late this afternoon The Politico was describing Cheney's meeting with Republican members of Congress as "a bloodbath and "an unmitigated disaster." Boehner, tap-dancing as usual, said his caucus doesn't like the proposal but they had to support it because they can't do "nothing." Doing nothing is what crazies of the extreme right want-- that and lowering taxes on the wealthy some more-- and doing something constructive and fair-- where proposals from Dodd, Frank and Kucinich are headed-- is something Boehner and the Regime refuse to consider. "No golden parachutes, no deal," is what Paulson threatened.

There was a time when Dick Cheney could turn back a Republican revolt on Capitol Hill.

That time is gone.

The vice president traveled to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to silence a chorus of GOP complaints about Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s $700 billion plan. But House Republicans who walked into a closed-door meeting with Cheney steaming over the plan walked out just as angry, and they described what happened in between as both “a bloodbath” and “an unmitigated disaster.”

Texas Rep. Joe Barton took the unusual step of telling reporters gathered outside the Cannon Caucus Room that he had confronted Cheney “respectfully” about his concerns-- a level of dissent Republicans once considered heresy under the Bush administration.

Another lawmaker present-- who spoke on the condition of anonymity-- said that Cheney, White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten and economic policy adviser Keith Hennessey “were in worse shape when they left than when they came in.”

Cheney’s inability to turn around members of his own party said plenty about how congressional Republicans view the Bush White House these days-- but maybe even more about their discomfort with a bailout plan many of them see as an attack on their free market principles.

“It’s a sad fact, but Americans can no longer trust the economic information they are getting from this administration,” South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint said in a comment posted on Politico’s Arena forum.

“There is tremendous unease over the federal government assuming the assets that these financial institutions cannot price or manage,” said Alabama Rep. Spencer Bachus, the ranking Republican on the committee drafting the legislation.

It wasn’t clear Tuesday whether Republicans were willing to take responsibility for killing the Paulson plan-- but neither were they eager to take responsibility for passing it, either.

Republican leaders are now hoping Democrats load the legislation with unrelated measures that would give them the political cover to oppose it, members and aides said. At the same time, party leaders are using back channels in the business community to gauge member support for a “clean” bill.

This is playing out in the context of a presidential election that is looking worse and worse for the Republicans by the day. Most Americans, and rightfully so, blame them and their policies for the catastrophe. It didn't help McCain's cause today when the NY Times exposed his crooked lobbyist Rick Davis as being on the payroll of Freddie Mac until just a few days ago, thereby also exposing another flat out lie by McCain, this one that Davis hasn't gotten a cent from Freddie Mac in years. "Davis’s firm," according to the Times, "received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month."

But what makes this revelation even worse for McCain is that Freddie Mac employees are saying the payments were made to Davis primarily to placate McCain himself!

They said they did not recall Mr. Davis’s doing much substantive work for the company in return for the money, other than speak to a political action committee of high-ranking employees in October 2006 on the approaching midterm Congressional elections. They said Mr. Davis’s firm, Davis & Manafort, had been kept on the payroll because of Mr. Davis’s close ties to Mr. McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, who by 2006 was widely expected to run again for the White House.
Mr. Davis took a leave from Davis & Manafortfor the presidential campaign, but as a partner and equity-holder continues to benefit from its income. No one at Davis & Manafort other than Mr. Davis was involved in efforts on Freddie Mac’s behalf, the people familiar with the arrangement said.

A Freddie Mac spokeswoman said the company would not comment.

Jill Hazelbaker, a spokeswoman for the McCain campaign, did not dispute the payments to Mr. Davis’s firm. But she said that Mr. Davis had stopped taking a salary from his firm by the end of 2006 and that his work did not affect Mr. McCain.

“Senator McCain’s positions on policy matters are based upon what he believes to be in the public interest,” Ms. Hazelbaker said in a written statement.

Please name one time a crooked politician, caught in this kind of a scam said anything other than what McCain is saying, that everything he does-- even the bribes he and his henchmen take-- are always in the public interest. It's what Ney said when he was sentenced to prison. It's what Cunningham said when he was sentenced to prison. It's what indicted GOP criminals Tom DeLay, Rick Renzi, John Doolittle and Ted Stevens are still saying while they're negotiating to stay out of prison. Tonight Newsweek confirmed what the Times reported, reporting that since 2006 Freddie Mac has passed along at least $345,000 to Davis and that the arrangements were made because of an implied threat about McCain's power. The FBI is investigating Davis' role.

And what did McCain and the GOP deliver to what FDR used to call "banksters" for all these millions and millions of dollars in pay-offs? Let's watch McCain and his cronies explain exactly what they did for the money they were given:

Did McCain Learn Anything From His Keating Five Experience?

Early in his congressional career McCain was taking bribes-- to the tune of $112,000 in campaign contributions-- from Charles Keating, a family friend and crooked banker for whom he was caught strong-arming federal regulators. Eventually McCain's interference on behalf of his pal Keating-- who was also involved in very lucrative business deals with McCain's gangster (former jailbird) father-in-law and with his wife Cindy-- cost the taxpayers billions of dollars. You see, even if McCain didn't invent the Blackberry, he did invent the Savings and Loan scandal. At the time the McCains would regularly bundle off in one of Keating's private jets to his private retreat at Cat Cay in the Bahamas. Although right wing propagandists try to say McCain was "cleared," he wasn't. He was formally "admonished" by his colleagues on the very lax Senate Ethics Committee.

McCain calls his Keating Five experience "the worst mistake of my life," although God only knows how that stacks up to the torture in Vietnam he never stops talking about. But the real question is... what did he learn from being caught in the clutches of a crook like Keating and barely escaping with his political career intact? Apparently it wasn't to stop taking bribes in return for political favors and it wasn't to stop associating with unsavory characters who are eager to get at the taxpayers' money. What he learned was to stop going to the Bahamas... Instead he goes to Bermuda to colelct money from Republican fat cats who shelter their wealth so they don't have to pay their fair share of taxes the way the rest of us do. In fact, the head of the McCain economic brain trust-- his probable first choice to run the economy if McCain-Palin is victorious in November-- Phil Gramm is a senior vice president and lobbyist for a shady Swiss bank that is under investigation for helping rich folksshelter money in Bermuda. His clients may be whining about other things-- like the cost of yachts and cays-- but not about taxes.

McCain May Not Have Helped Invent The Blackberry, But He Was Part Of The Team That Invented Banking Scandals And Bailouts

Is there a relationship to John McCain's Keating 5 Scandal, which led to the taxpayers losing $3.4 billion, and the current Wall Street meltdown? You bet there is! Crooks & Liars has the story. Both scandals are direct results of Greed, special interest's/political corruption and the arrogance of Power. And McCain was at the heart of both. Although his disgraceful role in the Keating 5 scandal was largely whitewashed and he got away with an admonishment, his role as the head of the Senate Banking Committee where he came down firmly against federal regulatory agencies on behalf of the special interests paying him off with millions and millions of dollars in political "donations," will be tougher to deny.

The new film, Third Term helps put McCain's relationship to his ethics shortcomings into perspective. David Donnelly, director of Campaign Money Watch sums it up nicely: "Fast-forward twenty years to now, we have a huge mortgage crisis on our hands. It’s the result of years and years and years of a deregulatory approach that Senator McCain has supported."

He did not learn his lesson. The S&L collapse was a failure of adequate regulation, with the banks running wild, making dodgy investments with high risk-high reward margins. If that sounds familiar, it should... It’s the same thing that’s happening now, as banks fail, and as our housing market collapses. And the people responsible for this new crisis are the ones McCain has surrounded himself with, men like Phil Gramm and his banking lobbyists. He will offer the same kind of deregulatory policies that led to the banking collapse of the early ‘90s.

Take a look at this short clip from the movie, which puts the whole mess into perspective:



Just like he did before, at the time of his Keating 5 Scandal, McCain is desperate to blame everyone else and take no responsibility. That is the hallmark of his disgraceful career. McCain railing against the "Washington culture of lobbying and influence peddling," blaming this culture of the Wall Street crisis, and insisting that Obama is "square in the middle of it" is quintessential McCain, someone any colleague from the Senate, short of gay cypher Lindsey Graham and Holy Joe Lieberman-- both of whom have pinned their political futures to McCain's star-- will tell you is the least trustworthy, least believable, least honorable man in the U.S. Senate, regardless of political party.

Even the Wall Street Journal's notoriously right-wing editorial board is fed up with his devious campaign and is telling its readers that he "doesn't understand what's happening on Wall Street... McCain clearly wants to distance himself from the Bush Administration. But this assault on Mr. Cox is both false and deeply unfair. It's also un-Presidential... It wasn't very long ago that he blamed speculators on the long side for sky-high oil prices. Then oil prices fell. Now Mr. McCain wants voters to believe speculators are responsible for driving mismanaged financial companies to ruin. The irony is that this critique puts Mr. McCain in the same camp as some of the Wall Street CEOs who have led their firms so poorly. They also want someone (else) to blame... In a crisis, voters want steady, calm leadership, not easy, misleading answers that will do nothing to help. Mr. McCain is sounding like a candidate searching for a political foil rather than a genuine solution."

This morning Bush and Obama were calling on the whole nation to put partisanship aside and come together to fight the common enemy. McCain, clearly sensing that he is the common enemy lashed out viciously and desperately with more false negative, Rovian TV commercials trying to blame Obama while spewing an endless regurgitation of lies and distortions.

Will McCain And Palin Suspend Campaigning To Save The Gulf Coast From Ike?

McCain rushed down to the Gulf Coast and chased Hurricane Gustav around for a few days, trying his best to milk the publicity value that it might have been worth had it gone from  Cat 3 to Cat 4, rather than from Cat 2 to Cat 1. At least he was able to avoid having to endure live appearances of the discredited heads of his party, George Bush and Dick Cheney, at his convention.

The lobbyist brigade driving the Double Talk Express made the most they could out of Gustav's rainy, windy weather, even managing to project McCain's own repulsive opportunism onto Barack Obama's selfless endeavor to raise money for potential victims while McCain was busy raising headlines for himself.

Yesterday Hurricane Ike pounded the Caribbean islands, killing scores of people and is now heading towards the Florida Keys. It is expected to hit the Gulf Coast by Wednesday. "Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said so-called "hurricane fatigue" should not prevent people there from leaving their homes for the second time in 10 days." Will it prevent McCain and Palin from their antics? Bush has already declared an official state of emergency for Florida-- but can it really be "official" until McCain and Palin get there to exploit the media?

Is Tax Policy Important To You? And What About Character Traits Like Honesty And Integrity?

In all the hubbub over McCain's reckless selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate and Bush's slash-and burn, though, alas, retroactive, denunciation of Neocon lunatic John Bolton, it is slipping past the zeitgeist that the increasingly deceptive and shady McCain campaign is attempting to literally brainwash the American public by constantly repeating blatant lies about Barack Obama's tax proposals. Today's Washington Post didn't call McCain a lying sack of shit but... almost. Their editorial is titled Continuing Deception and the subtitle makes it clear what sort of deception is continuing: "Mr. McCain's ads on taxes are just plain false."

There is a serious debate to be had in this presidential campaign about the fundamentally different tax policies of Barack Obama and John McCain. Then there is the phony, misleading and at times outright dishonest debate that the McCain campaign has been waging-- most recently with a television ad.

The two candidates have very different positions on taxes. Mr. Obama wants to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans and cut them substantially for low- and middle-income taxpayers. He would cut taxes for more households, and by a larger amount, than Mr. McCain, who would give the greatest benefits to wealthy households and corporations.

These are disagreements rooted in divergent views about the role of tax policy: the importance of reducing inequality versus the importance of encouraging investment. Mr. Obama has the wiser and more fiscally responsible of the plans, on balance, but this is by no means a one-sided debate between evil, tycoon-hugging Republicans and good-hearted Democrats. Higher taxes do have consequences for the behavior of both individuals and corporations. Listening to the candidates debate and defend their actual plans would be a useful exercise.

Instead, the McCain campaign insists on completely misrepresenting Mr. Obama's plan. The ad opens with the Obama-as-celebrity theme-- "Celebrities don't have to worry about family budgets, but we sure do," says the female announcer. "We're paying more for food and gas, making it harder to save for college, retirement." Then she sticks it to him: "Obama's solution? Higher taxes, called 'a recipe for economic disaster.' He's ready to raise your taxes but not ready to lead."

The facts? The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found that the Obama plan would give households in the bottom fifth of the income distribution an average tax cut of 5.5 percent of income ($567) in 2009, while those in the middle fifth would get an average cut of 2.6 percent of income ($1,118). "Your taxes" would go up, yes-- but not if you're someone who is sweating higher gas prices. By contrast, Mr. McCain's tax plan would give those in the bottom fifth of income an average tax cut of $21 in 2009. The middle fifth would get $325-- less than a third of the Obama cut. The wealthiest taxpayers make out terrifically.

The country can't afford the tax cuts either man is promising, although Mr. McCain's approach is by far the more costly. We don't expect either side to admit that. But neither side should get to outright lie about its opponent's positions, either.

I suspect a banner headline across the Post's front page, "John McCain Caught Lying About Taxes Again," would go a long way towards the Post's consistent policy of allowing shameless McCain shill, David Broder, set the tone for the paper's fawning coverage of the most ruthless and untrustworthy political hack to ever seek the White House.

Oh, and if you'd like to see how you, personally, would fare under an Obama presidency, here's a website that allows you to enter your income and find out how much you will pay in taxes if Obama wins in November. It's a better way of finding out where you stand than by watching ads supervised by Karl Rove, the man who brought on 8 years of George W. Bush and his policies. And, along those lines, here's a report from everyone's favorite tax expert, Brian Deese: