Senator John McCain landed in Iraq this morning on a official congressional visit taxpayer funded campaign stop with two members of his campaign, Senators Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman, and this morning on Late Edition Wolf Blitzer spoke with Senators Patrick Leahy and Diane Feinstein about the trip and whether it’s appropriate. The clip begins with CNN’s John King reporting from Iraq and he was more than willing to spew McCain’s talking points on the surge and how Senators Obama and Clinton want to wave the white flag of surrender.
Download | Play 
Download | Play
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.”
Both Leahy and Feinstein point out that McCain has a right to visit Iraq as a member of Congress, but agree he shouldn’t have taken two members of his campaign with him, even though they are also members of Congress. Leahy gets it right, this is nothing more than a photo op for McCain, who admits that he will be moving on to Great Britain for a fund raiser after his visit to Iraq. Maybe the McSurge Triplets will get to go on another shopping spree and find more great bargains while they’re in Baghdad? Oh wait — they can’t go back to the same market they visited last year because that area of the city is now too dangerous.
Will McSame exploit this trip to raise campaign cash? You bet he will…
Filed Under: CNN, Campaigns/Elections, Election 08, Iraq, John McCain, Late Edition/Wolf Blitzer, Middle East
No Trackbacks To “Late Edition: McCain’s Taxpayer Funded Campaign Stop In Iraq“
A Bush by any other name is still the Republican Nominee (to be).
1ST?
damn that was close…
Time for the people to begin deciding how they precious taxes are spent. This has got to stop. The gravy train in Congress is totally out of control; Bush is raiding the Treasury, Medicare and Medicaid will be kaput by the time this clown leaves office, and the Democracy will be tanked into the ground, thanks to Bush. What a legacy! And then he leaves a 7.7trillion dollar deficit on the backs of our children and grandchildren and their children. This man is so demonic and sick that he lacks a human conscience. What’s more, since he’s used our Constitution as his personal toilet paper, the People no longer have any rights. Oh yeah…I forgot….we have the right to vote. Question: Will our votes be counted? And on what corrupt machines? And then where are the results being sent? To RNC servers in the bottom of some bank building in tennessee as they did by Ohio State Sup. of Elections Fraudster, Ken Blackwell?? This man Blackwell should be sitting in prison right now for what he did in 2004 - and his cellmates should be Jebbie Bush and Katherine Harris for their stealing of the election in 2000.
So the next time you thump your chest in a patriotic posture and lie to yourself about all of the “rights” we have in this democracy, guess again. While you’re busy deluding youself, the RNC and their KKKKarl clones and gremlins are, right now, fixing the software on all those Diebold Opti Scanners to produce the results they want. That’s right….the fix is being put in right now.
gc @ 2:
If you have nothing else to contribute than seeing your name at the top of the thread, shut up.
That said, I’d like to mention that McCain should be billed for this trip out of his campaign funds.
.
Yep, the next stop is to collect his winnings in the U.K.
Senator’s Supporters Are Invited to Lunch With a Lord
McCampaign funds a bit low?
.
The only surge was the amount of $$$$ into the toilet.
Maybe it’s time to shakedown some of the rich for that money.
slippy hussein toad @ 5:
Slippy, don’t diss dissent.
At least gc is participating.
osiris @ 4:
WORD!
I’ll paraphrase the ancient wizened turd: I am going to kill as many of our youth as I can. I dont care what you think, I’m crazy and mean, so line em up in the meat grinder. W00t!!
Come to think of it: What if they called an election, and hardly anybody turned out (yet the official propaganda line suggested substantial voter turnout)?
Such was the case in Iran this past week (or so the BBC hath it; their Tehran correspondent noted where @ least one polling station in the capital saw hardly any activity).
Just saw a video on fox of McCain in Iraq. He looks just as insane as he did when he was there the last time. First in a baseball cap and then in a helmet. Looked so bizarre.
Oh sure, with the economy the way it is and homeowners facing foreclosure, it’s dandy for taxpayers to foot the bill for his trip…………NOT!
Fox news today can’t understand why the Clinton campaign isn’t making more hay out of the deal with Obama and the pastor. Hell, why should the Clinton campaign say anything, Fox news is heating the pot for them.
McCain, in Iraq, Confused about Who to Call ‘My Friends’
slippy hussein toad @ 5:
99 out of a hundred people that try to get there first, or frist as some say, have nothing else to say.
(excuse me, the damn computer submitted before I finished)
What is the difference between an official congressional visit to Iraq and a “taxpayer”-funded one? Aren’t they both funded by the federal government?
Max-Hussein-1 @ 8:
He’s just spamming, as far as I’m concerned.
Yeah, we need to do something. Maybe another blog.
cj @ 15:
No difference. They just think we’re stupid enough to assume we’re not paying for the “official congressional visit”. Nor would we ever think that this is a campaign stunt, since it is congressional business. No, we would never think that….
L.A. Confidential @ 17:
2030
http://tinyurl.com/ytbm3f
Wait a minuet, we have to decide, are we going to be scared of then Iraqi terrorist following us home because they hate our freedoms or the scary black preacher. Pay no attention to the economy, everything is hunky dory. We can keep sending all our manufacturing out of the country because you can buy cheap crap at WalMart. Just because we are not paying for all the stuff the government has been doing for the last seven years doesn’t mean we have to start paying for stuff now. The rich people have problems too ya know. I am getting a head ache.
In the last few months, many US contractors working in Iraq have been kidnapped by various groups for ransom or prisoner exchange. Recently the SEVERED FINGERS of five of these individuals were delivered to the US military in Iraq. DNA tests verified that two of the individuals are Paul Reuben of Minnesota and Joshua Munns of Redding, California. Four of the men were guards for a convoy ambushed near the Kuwaiti border on Nov. 16, 2006… they are believed to include Jonathan Cote of Getzville, New York, and Bert Nussbaumer of Vienna, Austria. The fifth is believed to be Ronald Winthrow of Lubbock, Texas. Another hostage taken on the Kuwaiti border incident was John Young of Lee’s Summit, Missouri, though no body parts of his was received by the US military.
Why doesn’t CNN ask Mr. McCaine is this is the kind of environment for American contratcors and military personnel that is acceptible to him when he boasts that we will be in Iraq for a HUNDRED YEARS if necessary?
Why doesn’t anybody ask McCaine how much cash per month we are paying Al Sadre’s private army to keep their guns at home? The only reason there is a limited cease-fire now is because Muqtada Al Sadre wants to be Ayatolla.
Why doesn’t somebody ask McCaine what he will do as president to continue negotiating with THAT terrorist… and how much CASH will he be willing to pay his henchmen… every month… for a hundred years?
McCain should have a big campaign photo-op at George Bush Square, surrounded by happy Iraqis, awash in flower petals. Oh, wait…
Obama, Clinton teams exchange fire
Duhhhhhhhhh
Grandstand
anon @ 24:
Your paying for it.
Paul Reuben, Isn’t that Pee-Wee Herman? CowboyBob his answer would be that is exactly why we have to stay, all the brave men and woman have died to fix these problems and if we leave now they will have died in vain. You can’t point out all the crap that is wrong in Iraq as an excuse to leave you just have to leave. This is not a war it is an occupation, you can not win an occupation all you can do is end it.
Let me get this straight– he’s going to Iraq to help his campaign?
nsr @ 27:
He has to show Wall Street he has Muscle.
Commander McCain on the front lines.
Nifty Photo Op also.
L.A. Confidential @ 29:
And I’m paying for it.
Gretchen @ 30:
Yes we are. Big Time.
1986
John LOFTON (Washington Times): Our families are under attack from people like you with these lyrics.
Frank ZAPPA: Could I make a comment about National Defense: the biggest threat to America today is not communism. It’s moving America toward a fascist theocracy. And everything that’s happened under the Reagan Administration is steering us right down that pipe.
Robert NOVAK: Oh, mr Zappa…
ZAPPA: Yes, MISTER Zappa…
NOVAK: Do you really think…I mean…
ZAPPA: I really think!
NOVAK: All kidding aside. Is this country, with the permissiveness, that we are moving toward a fascist theocracy?
ZAPPA: You bet we are buddy.
NOVAK: Do you things that things like this would ever have happened…
ZAPPA: Give me that famous smile, buddy.
NOVAK: When we were twenty, when we were kids… you’re about my age?
ZAPPA: I’m forty-five.
NOVAK: Well, I’m fifty-five. Do you think that when I was a kid that they would permit songs like that to be sold. I mean permissiveness is a game. I mean you’re not really serious if you saying we’re going toward a fasist theocracy.
ZAPPA: That’s right we ARE!
Tom BRADEN: Wait a minute, give me one example of a fascist theocracy.
ZAPPA: When you have a government that prefers a certain moral code derived from a certain religion, and that moral code turns into legislation to suit one certain religious point of view, and if that code happens to be very very right wing, almost toward Atilla the Hun…
LOFTON: Well then you are an anarchist. Every form of civil government is based on some kind of morality Frank.
ZAPPA: Morality in terms of behavior, not in terms of theology!
LOFTON: well of course, but look, I mean, I couldn’t believe in terms of your lyrics, I mean, uh….
NOVAK: Wait a minute gentlement, we have to take a break now.
L.A. Confidential @ 32:
http://tinyurl.com/3298h8
This is more framing by BIG MEDIA (BM) in which the Obama is still the militant black muslim and McCain is the HERO. The corporations are a bit apprehensive (scared shitless) of a populist president so BM will continue to spin this in order to chip, chip chip away well in advance of any general campaign.
BTW, do Republicans think taxes are “our money” or their own personal trough? Bailing out CEO’s who probably pay no taxes anyway.
On a separate note, Fu*k Florida!! Stop talking about 2000!! In 2004 you voted for Bush again, so stop whining because the nation owes you nothing. If anything, you owe an apology to the nation. The privilege to vote in the general election this year is way too much than you deserve, but since you fu*k up most of the time, the DNC should be consistent and ban you from voting all together. You screwed up in 2000, 2004, 2008, don’t beg for anything, because you’re sad and pathetic. Your invoking the hundreds of thousands of votes that will be victimized and suffer, as if the nation hasn’t suffered enough because of Floridians’ right to f*ck up two elections and indirectly impoverish this country by electing Bush twice and voting against Kerry in 2004, is soooo sick.
RayC at 26…
You make a good point about the occupation… and ending it for the sake of ending it.
What struck me about that story is that I got those names from a daily independant newspaper from Cairo, the Daily News-EGYPT. I am not aware of this abduction-and-body-parts story being discussed anywhere in the US media. Another example of NOT KNOWING what’s going on over there.
John at 35
Your whole SCRAWL here is REVISIONIST BUNK. Florida did not screw up the election of 2000… THE SUPREME COURT DID. If you REMEMBER… or maybe READ SOME HISTORICAL FACTS… Florida voted FOR GORE. It was the Supreme Court… probably under the direction of Papa BUSH that handed that state to W by preventing votes to be counted!
Your comment pissed me off. You sound like every one of those Republican hypocrits who say “…don’t look back… we’re talking about THE FUTURE! As if the recent or deep past doesn’t have anything to do with the future!
WMDs…? That’s ancient history!
Valorie Plame…? That’s ancient history!
Voter fraud and caging in Ohio in 2004…? That’s ancient history!
Hopefully… in the very near future… both George Bush AND John McCain will become ancient history.
If McCain likes visiting Iraq so much, why don’t he and Cindy move there? I would help them pack.
slippy hussein toad @ 5:
I completely agree on both counts.
Talk about your little ironies
McCain claims “the surge” is working, yet no US politician can give a schedule for visiting Iraq more than 5 minutes in advance, in contrast to Iran’s Ahmadinejad
Good job backing “the surge”, eh, McCain?
Such schadenfreude will be on display when McCain is ground up into political hamburger come Election Day, 2008
[Deleted. It’s racism, conspiracy theory, off topic and spam all wrapped in one big ball of joy. Please don’t waste our time with it any longer. Thank you. Site Monitor]
L.A. Confidential @ 32:
My question seems to have disappeared. Where did you find this treasure LA. Is it on YouTube?
Awesome John King , you managed to get in at least 5 McSame Talking points in , in one paragraph . Did you learn that in journalism school or by your time in the Belt way echo chamber .
what more could Mcsame ask for , a predicable script filled with glorifying adjectives like ” Authoritative ” and ” he would make the tough decision keeping them there ” gessuz, what a load of BS . The decision for permanent bases in iraq , was made priot to the invasion , KING or haven’t you read the PNAC doctrine .
The goal is obviously to frame the Iraq/McSame disaster in only terms of ‘ THE SURGE ” and if they went any further , the U.S. media will be exposing not only McSame’s failure as far as the dirty water in Iraq, he completely has NO concern for , that’s killing Thousands of Iraqi babies ; the huge rise in Street Crime after Mcsame’s invasion ; Massive unemployment ; Millions of Refugees sleeping on dirt floors ; No electricity in much of Iraq , and criminal enterprises , known as contractors ripping off U.S. Tax payers , the media will expose their complicity in not covering the everyday suffering of Iraqis , all in order to make McSame look as if he’s some sort of conquering hero .
If John king had an ounce of journalistic integrity , he would ask John McSame , why do you intent to occupy Iraq , when the VAST MAJORITY of Iraqis want the U.S. occupation to END and to end the U.S. controlled prisons ; and contracts given to U.S. oil corporations , at the expense of the Iraqi people .