John McCain: Do as I Say, Not as I do. Plus, Hillary Wants it Both Ways on NAFTA and Health Care.

I think that the press (as usual) is missing the crux of the McCain story, that being the lobbyist aspect. I'm not talking necessarily about the female lobbyist but that his campaign is riddled with lobbyists.

Sen. John McCain is defending the private work performed by his campaign staff, many of whom earn healthy livings off the campaign trail as registered federal lobbyists. Although the so-called "maverick" Arizona lawmaker has long fought to minimize the role of special interests in electoral politics, McCain called his senior campaign staff "honorable" for their lobbying work.

"These people have honorable records, and they're honorable people, and I'm proud to have them as part of my team," he declared in Indianapolis, blaming the system and not the individuals who work within it for unduly influencing policy-making.

GOI: This argument doesn't hold water. I don't care if they are honorable people or not, (Which I'm sure is debatable anyway) you're keeping the corrupt system going that you are blaming and supposedly seeking to reform by speaking up for these specific lobbyists!! How is it fair to say that his lobbyists are "o.k." but the rest are crooks? Is he insinuating that he's the arbiter of who is a "good" lobbyist or not? Are we just supposed to "trust" him? I don't think so. In my hazy days of doing drugs I knew several honorable people who just so happened to deal in small quantities of street drugs but that didn't make the illegal drug business any less shady.

And why even have the presence of lobbyists on your plane when a major aspect of your campaign is driving out the special interests from Washington D.C.? If you were trying to convince people that gambling is wrong then hanging out with gamblers doesn't exactly gain people's trust in your message. You can argue all you want that you don't do business with those gamblers but just having them around makes you look shady. If you're against lobbying and are trying to change the system then enabling certain lobbyists within your campaign isn't "honorable."

McCain later went on to say, "The right to represent interests or groups of Americans is a constitutional right. There are people that represent firemen, civil servants, retirees, and those people are legitimate representatives of a variety of interests in America."

Unfortunately for McCain, a review of federal records maintained by the Senate Office of Public Records show that the lobbyists at the top of the senator's campaign and senatorial staffs do not represent fire fighters, civil servants, or retirees, the legitimate causes he identified in his address on Friday.

And why are they instead representing large corporations, including AT&T, Verizon, JP Morgan, Land O'Lakes, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, and Toyota? Does McCain think these interests are on the same plane as fire fighters, civil servants, and retirees?

GOI: Then there is this from his own website, "that too often the special interest lobbyists with the fattest wallets and best access carry the day when issues of public policy are being decided." Well these lobbyists who work on his campaign have pretty close access to a would be president and yet McCain wants us to believe that there is nothing to see there and that we should just all move along? How can he honestly say that these lobbyists within his campaign don't influence him when they are advising him on most likely a daily basis? He's playing us for fools.

As Associated Press writer Liz Sidoti wrote, this do as I say and not as I do lobbying rhetoric is a lot of things but one thing it is not is "straight-talk."

Hillary Wanting it Both Ways:

I'm watching CNN's "Ballot Bowl" program which shows clips from speeches of the various candidates for president and Hillary is losing it. They showed her spitting mad over a couple fliers that the Obama's campaign has been circulating. The first flier speaks of Hillary Clinton's health care plan and that it forces everyone to get health care even if they can not afford it and that Hillary has said she would garnish wages to get them to accept her plan. The fact of the matter is that this is true whether "both ways" Hillary wants to admit it. She has said that she is considering going after people's wages. In other words, she's considering it and therefore hasn't absolutely ruled it out and therefore is a legitimate issue to raise awareness about. Voters should know that garnishing wages is something that Hillary is considering.

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., this morning left open the possibility that, if elected, her government would garnish the wages of people who didn't comply with her health care plan. "We will have an enforcement mechanism, whether it's that or it's some other mechanism through the tax system or automatic enrollments," Clinton said in an appearance on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos".

Clinton went on to say, though, that such mechanisms would not include penalties. "They don't have to pay fines … We want them to have insurance. We want it to be affordable.

GOI: She says that people don't have to pay fines but they might garnish wages? What's the difference? It's pure, typical political semantics, we're back to what the definition of "is" is that was made famous by her husband during the Lewinsky affair. It is splitting microscopic hairs with a laser. In addition, she is criticizing Obama for daring to question her health care plan because he himself doesn't have the same exact plan!! "Just because Senator Obama chose not to present a universal health care plan does not give him the right to criticize me because I did." said Clinton.

In other words she doesn't think that he should be able to disagree because his doesn't share her exact policy views!! And if he doesn't have the right to criticize Obama's plan then she doesn't have the right to criticize his which she has done on numerous occasions!! What makes her so special that she doesn't have to face criticism? If Obama doesn't get to criticize and question her plan then why hold a contest for president at all!! I guess she just wants us to have sympathy for her failing campaign and just hand her the presidency. She's grasping at anything right now and near the end of her tirade said that Obama should be ashamed? She should be the one ashamed of playing everyone for fools. It was just a few nights ago when she ended the debate on a high note saying she has the greatest respect for Senator Obama but then the next day she says that he should be ashamed of himself? Which is the real Hillary, that is the question that has been at the crux on her campaign.

The other flier dealt with Hillary's support of her husband passing NAFTA. Something that she only now criticizes now that she's running for president. Here are some quotes from Senator Clinton about NAFTA:

Hillary Clinton has made statements unequivocally trumpeting NAFTA as the greatest thing since sliced bread. The Buffalo News reports that back in 1998, Clinton attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and thanked praised corporations for mounting "a very effective business effort in the U.S. on behalf of NAFTA." Yes, you read that right: She traveled to Davos to thank corporate interests for their campaign ramming NAFTA through Congress.

On November 1, 1996, United Press International reported that on a trip to Brownsville, Texas, Clinton "touted the president's support for the North American Free Trade Agreement, saying it would reap widespread benefits in the region."

The Associated Press followed up the next day noting that Hillary Clinton touted the fact that "the president would continue to support economic growth in South Texas through initiatives such as the North American Free Trade Agreement."

In her memoir, Clinton wrote, "Senator Dole was genuinely interested in health care reform but wanted to run for president in 1996. He couldn't hand incumbent Bill Clinton any more legislative victories, particularly after Bill's successes on the budget, the Brady bill and NAFTA."

Yes, we are all expected to just forget that, so that Hillary Clinton's campaign can manufacture supposed "outrage" that anyone would say she supported NAFTA - all at a time her chief strategist, Mark Penn, simultaneously heads a firm that is right now pushing to expand NAFTA into South America.

And:

"I think, on balance, NAFTA has been good for New York and America." -- HRC, 2004. This was only two years before she decided to run for president.

GOI: Here is how she wants it both ways, she now opportunistically opposes NAFTA despite these quotes yet at the same time wants to take credit of the economy of the 1990's. So much of her campaign has been based upon her husband's administration thus she can't take credit for the good and not have to answer for the bad policies. There might not be an exacte quote from her saying it was a "boon" to the economy but the above quotes of her supporting NAFTA is basically saying just that--a boon to the economy. Saying that NAFTA has been good for America is supporting NAFTA--period. Remember, this wasn't a quote from the 90's when she was in the thick of the Clinton administration. So what occurred between 2004 and now? Her decision to run for president when she conveniently shifted positions and started to oppose NAFTA.

Now today, (Sunday) she is back to playing the Bush fear card trying to scare voters mentioning the recent troubles in Serbia and the retirement of Castro. The suggestion being that if you vote for Obama then America would be toppled, cities burned to the ground and Americans enslaved or some such nonsense. As if Obama would be some dunce who would just let America be pushed around by any and all enemies of America. That is the Republican tactic of winning elections and speaking of shame, she should be ashamed of herself for going against the great Democrat, FDR's encouragement that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. It's ludicrous and so is she.

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