I’ll be brief in what I think is an important tidbit of information regarding hypocrite opportunist selfish self serving panderer John McCain. And if you are on Facebook, please join the “Know Your McCain” Facebook group, so we can distribute this information far and wide.
Mr. “putting America first”, except when it comes to actually putting America and Americans first, is touting how much he wants to be there for America in times of emergency. Never mind the fact that going towards the disaster zone sucks up resources that will have to be used for his protection, and never mind the fact that he didn’t get on Air Force One with Bush three years ago while the very region that he is grandstanding in now was drowning.
But if he was so interested in helping America and the victims of disaster areas, then why did he spend nearly all of June fundraising for his own presidential campaign – three months after he had the nomination sewed up while the Midwest was flooded, California had tremendous wildfires and droughts and both regions were declared “disaster areas”?
The Midwest floods started at the end of May and continued throughout June. According to Wikipedia (and if it is important enough, I will get the backup links), 6 states were impacted, 13 people died and the damage was estimated at more than $6 billion..
The 2008 California wildfires lasted from late May into July, with at least 10 drought or fire proclamations in all areas of the state from late May through late June.
And during all of this, where was pandering hypocrite McCain (certainly not in the Senate, since he missed 100 votes since mid April)?
Fundraising for his own campaign.
It was so important for him to try desperately and shamelessly to pander and make amends for eating cake with Bush while the Gulf Coast drowned in 2005 show that he is “there for America” during this week, yet when it was just as important for leadership and there were more Americans in need – in two areas of the country for an entire month where he had nothing that was pressing to his campaign going on, McCain showed where his priorities really and truly are. By the way, even though Obama and Clinton were just wrapping up a very long and contentious primary season, at a time when the nomination was not yet locked up, Obama helped with sandbagging the midwest disaster areas.
Here is the “calendar of events” for the McCain campaign. He had 36 events scheduled for June. He had one “environmental briefing” in Santa Barbara, which I would give him the benefit of the doubt on if it wasn’t sandwiched around fundraisers in Fresno and a swanky private golf club in Las Vegas.
He did have 23 fundraisers (or “finance receptions”) during the month, including stops in New York, Philadelphia, Virginia, Cincinnati, Chicago, Hartford, Memphis, Nashville, Orlando, St. Petersburg, Miami, Washington DC (although he missed three votes the day after he was in DC so he could be in New York City – for a dinner fundraiser), Houston, San Antonio and Missouri.
Oh yeah, and two more fundraisers in California while the fires raged on.
Of course, this is something so basic that anyone in the corporate media could take less than one hour and actually do some real reporting instead of the disgusting suck up that is being done. But why should we wait for them to actually do their job before pointing out such basic hypocrisy and pandering like this latest one from McCain?