I like some of you, used to hold out hope that there were at least a couple of relatively "good" Republicans. I find now that I was merely disillusioned.
If it wasn't already official, the Straight-Talk Maverick is officially dead, born is the new Wacko-Pandering John McCain. Hurray!!!
First it was Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Arlen Specter and now it appears that they (the DeLay wing of the Republican party) have gotten to McCain as well. They probably threatened to hold back the nut job (Robertson, Falwell, Dobson) conservative support in his bid for the Presidency in '08, if his recent address to Falwell's New School graduating class is any indication.
Today we find out that McCain is essentially pulling his support for a bill which once bore his name. The McCain-Feingold bill was born of the problems surrounding convicted Republican Super Lobbyist Jack Abramoff, disgraced House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, convicted Republican Congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham, embattled Republican Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee Jerry Lewis, and really the whole lot of 'em. The bill's intent was an attempt to clean up the way Republican's do politics and it is still desperately needed. Over the past decade, the Republican party (and in particular the hard-core conservative whack jobs) has essentially funded itself by selling off 'favors' - and out the American people - to it's friends in industry. Here's how it would work:
- Company "A", a lobbyist representing Company "A", or a lobbyist representing Company "A"'s industry, would meet with several of the Republican members (rarely though in some cases Industry-friendly Democrats as well) of a particular committee either to discuss legislation before it affecting Company "A"'s industry, to propose new legislation affecting Company "A"'s industry, or to guarantee Company "A" a contract discussed in a particular piece of legislation.
- Shortly thereafter, these Republican committee members would receive campaign contributions (often times at the $2000 max, sometimes illegally more - see Duke Cunningham and Katherine Harris) from Company "A" or employees of Company "A".
- Next, through some strange coincidence, Company "A" would find that, in lets say a new spending bill, they had received an earmark guaranteeing Company "A" dollars for an upcoming project, or that legislation which if passed - though protecting the people or ensuring a better way of life for the people - would cost Company "A" millions of dollars, was held up in committee never to see the floor to be voted on.
Now this isn't to suggest that this deviates from past practice, it doesn't in principal, what's new is how embolden this scum has become and how reckless we know find them with their use of earmarks and blatant rejection and authorization of certain legislation (see the "gift to the credit card companies" as the new Bankruptcy bill is referred, as just one example). Apparently to McCain this problem, which he acknowledged as a significant problem about a year ago when he co-sponsored the McCain-Feingold bill, is no longer a problem. I wonder what happened that could have possibly changed his mind. I guess like all significant problems it just went away.
It's too bad, he used to be a straight shooter, somebody we could count on to, for the most part, do what he felt was the right. But alas, McCain appears to have drank the Kool-Aid just like the rest of 'em.Labels: 2008 presidential election, christian conservatives, evangelicals, McCain |
