McCain's Iraq campaign commercial funded by taxpayers

Judas John McCain is in Iraq shooting a campaign commercial strolling in the "safe" Baghdad Market, flanked by 50 soldiers on a campaign stop funded by American taxpayers. Lovely. I find it pretty ironic that the Senator who rails against "pork barrel spending" doesn't mind wasting tens of thousands of our weakening dollar to gallivant around Baghdad to vilify his political opponents and critics.

Kudos to CNN's John King for regurgitating the McCain campaign's talking points about how Democrats are waving the white flag:

King:”...John McCain says he's here as a member of the Senate, but it is a defining issue in the campaign. It is John McCain who says either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama would wave what he calls the "white flag of surrender" by rushing to get troops out of Iraq at a time when John McCain, and he will make the case here, says the surge policy is working and that while he would like to get the troops home, if they need to stay, Senator McCain says as a Senator or as the next president he would make the tough decision to keep them here. This is John King, reporting from Fox News." (Okay, just kidding about that last part, but judging from this quotation, his working for Fox doesn't seem so crazy.)

I'm so tired of hearing about how the surge is working, by the way. The reason the surge is working is because we are paying off our enemies to not shoot and bomb us. Too bad it took us so long to figure that out, while hundreds of thousands of people were killed, including thousands of Americans, and hundreds of billions of our taxpayer dollars went up in smoke toward promoting democracy in the Middle East.

I'm sure, God willing if I live that long, that in the coming decades, as my taxes are skyrocketing to pay off our trillions in debt (exacerbated by this war) and as the services our government will be shrinking quicker than the current value of our dollar.

It's pretty outrageous that McCain has the hyper-annoying Sen. Lindsay Graham in tow, as well as fellow judas Zell Miller Joe Lieberman, both members and rabid supporters of his presidential campaign. It's sleazy at best, and completely and totally unethical at worst. I wonder if Graham got a good deal on rugs this time (wait for Graham at the end of the short vid) - what a cheap bastard. How much does a U.S. Senator make these days? Something like $170,000 or so?

And for those who think it's perfectly acceptable for McCain to go to Iraq because he's on the Senate Armed Services Committee I'd say this - you have a point, up to a point.

On the way home, McCain is stopping over in London for a fund raiser. So, will his flight from London back to the US be paid for by the taxpayers, or his campaign donors? It's a fair question.

Actually, the most interesting thing about his trip will be his boilerplate justifications as to how we can win in Iraq. He's going to meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a US stooge who has the credibility of Jack Abramoff, and he'll also meet with Gen. David Petraeus, but no one had better question the General's conduct, or you'll be subjected to a McCain rant like the one below...

So, let me get this straight - anyone who questions an officer's motives should be kicked out of the country? Hmm, I wonder where McCain was in 2004 when the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were accusing John Kerry of everything but fighting alongside the Viet Cong? Swallowing his tongue, that's where.

When I look at the above footage, I wonder whether McCain really understands what America is all about. If you don't know what I mean by that, check out the quote at the very top of this blog by Abbie Hoffman, because I can't think of a better way to put it than that.

Well, at least McCain didn't wear a clown suit while landing on an aircraft carrier.

h/t Crooks & Liars for top video and King's transcript