mccain in absentia
by Shane Nicholson
Published: February 8, 2008
The Straight Talk Express must’ve gone off the rails Wednesday night. That would be the only plausible excuse for why John McCain missed a vote that earlier in the day he’d said should be a top priority for congress, just hours before he skipped out on the bill, leaving 20 million seniors and over 250,000 disabled veterans to pick up the tab.
The economic stimulus package that McCain has touted time and again as a critical measure for all Americans during his campaign just wasn’t important enough for the senator to make time for in his hectic post-Super Tuesday schedule.
“We’ve just been too busy,” said McCain after landing yesterday afternoon at Dulles International. “I don’t know if I’m [voting on] that. We’ve got a couple of meetings scheduled.”
Of course this is nothing new for John the Moderate. The Republican senator from Arizona has missed nearly 60% of votes during the 110th Congress including all eight roll call votes this year. Wednesday’s 5:45 PM vote was just one more for the list.
Somehow two of his other flight companions were able to get over to the Capitol after departing their plane at 5:00. Lindsay Graham (Closet Larry Craig Wannabe - SC) and Joe Lieberman (Connecticut for Lieberman, nay “Independent Democrat” - CT) both somehow braved the rush hour traffic in the back of their limo for the critical vote. Graham voted against the measure while McCain’s bff voted in favor for the package. The final tally was 58-41. Republicans and their shrill AM radio disciples have broken out their calculators to point out that McCain’s vote would not have been enough to pass the legislation. They must have missed the part where Harry Reid switched his vote to the other side in order to return to the measure at a later date. That or they’re just ignoring the truth, not that conservatives would ever think of doing such a thing.
So what does one have to think about all this? Is it coincidence that a man running for president has failed to have his final opinion on hundreds of issues recorded for all to see? Is it just bad luck that the only senator who’s missed more votes than McCain during this congress spent nine months of it in the hospital recovering from a brain hemorrhage?
No, the fact is McCain is simply not doing his job, not fulfilling his duty as an elected public official, in order to avoid alienating any potential voter during this election cycle. This amazing ability to waver in the face of possible backlash from any portion of the electorate is why people continue to maintain that McCain is a moderate, a rouge Republican, but when it comes down to it he’s just avoiding doing his job.
People continue to equate his time spent in a POW camp with an ability to lead a military force. Yet the man is a hawk, through and through, with seemingly little compassion for our troops currently fighting across the globe, and he’s winning the “Republican anti-war” vote to boot. Yeah, I was amazed to find out that there is such a thing too.
McCain, like the rest of his party, hangs his hat on family values, yet he ditched his wife upon returning from Vietnam and shacked up with the trophy wife to be. His “maverick” voting record, a favorite of mass media types on both sides of the aisle, merely stems from his going against the party line on bills that are going to pass or fail without his vote anyway.
But when pressed to actually stick to his word on a heavily debated and highly important issue, when the Americans he’s been promising that he could take care of actually need his vote on the senate floor, where’s John McCain? Just missing another of the 200-some-odd votes he’s skipped on over the past year, busy planning out his next campaign stop which just happened to be at CPAC, not really a crowd McCain can easily woo.
It will be interesting what happens the next time this measure hits the floor. Will McCain again find himself wrapped up in meetings that are apparently more important to the senator than the welfare of millions and millions of Americans? Or will knowing that he doesn’t have to speak to a conference full of neo-cons the next day be enough to get him down to the Capitol in time?
I guess we’ll have to wait and see if the Straight Talk Express is running on time that day.
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