Phoney McCain sees HCR debacle as chance to "take back" the reform mantle

[BurtWorm]

According to Sam Stein of the Huffington Post, who seems unusually (for him) taken in by the patent bullshit going on here. To a degree, McCain's parrying on the lack of transparency in the making of this horseshit piece of legislation dropping out of the Senate's ass is an appropriate criticism, possibly true and might even stick--but not coming from phoney McCain and the Republicans, who wasted most of this year creating any and all distractions from the real issues to delay or derail health care reform. McCain seems to want to make something of the Democrats' soliticousness of Big Pharma and the Insurance Industry. There's substance to that critique, as well, but not coming from a man and party who were never interested in using a public option to force insurance company profits and costs down for the benefit of consumers and small businesses. Why don't the media laugh these hypocrites back into silence and irrelevance, where they belong?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/23/mccain-emerges-as-front-m_n_401913.html





McCain Emerges As Front Man In GOP Efforts To Claim Reform Mantle


First Posted: 12-23-09 01:15 PM | Updated: 12-23-09 01:18 PM



The way Democrats secured the 60 votes needed to break a Republican filibuster of health care legislation has exposed them to accusations that they have abandoned the "reformist" platform that swept them into office.

No cameras were allowed in the room where the final bill was written. And legislative sweeteners were added to the product to win the support of wavering members.

Senate Republicans, hell-bent on extracting every piece of political flesh they can in the current debate, quickly seized the initiative. And when they did, they turned to a familiar, self-proclaimed reformer to wield their message.

In a withering address on the Senate floor on Sunday, Sen. John McCain accused the president and Democratic leadership in the Senate of abandoning pledges of accountability and transparency during the reform process.

Pointing to the deals cut with the pharmaceutical industry, the American Medical Association and others, the Arizona Republican insisted that Democrats had "set up a tent out front and put Persian rugs out in front of it" - greeting special interests with specific gifts.

Recalling President Obama's campaign pledge to televise negotiations, McCain noted that "there has never been a C-SPAN camera" in the rooms where Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) crafted the final version of legislation. Drawing attention to some of the sweeteners that were put in the bill to win the support of conservative Democrats, McCain scoffed that there were now "new words in our lexicon," including the "Cornhusker Kickback", in reference to Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and the newly recoined term "The Louisiana Purchase" in reference to concessions to that state's Sen. Mary Landrieu.

McCain's new high-mindedness didn't impress New York Time's columnist Maureen Dowd, who wrote on Thursday that while McCain "used to be such a constructive independent that some of his Republican Senate colleagues called him a traitor. Now he's such a predictable obstructionist that he's in the just-say-no vanguard with the same conservatives who used to despise him." She concludes: "With President Obama, McCain's objections seem motivated more by vendetta than principle."

McCain has indeed proven to be less than a willing negotiator since returning from the campaign trail to the Senate. But his Tuesday rant wasn't just another reflexive broadside. Republican Party strategists say the GOP senses a serious opportunity to portray itself as the party of transparency and reform. They know from their own history that the legislative process is inherently messy, requiring the type of back-room dealing that was recently witnessed. That makes those in power susceptible to claims of corruption - and particularly so when they vowed to hold themselves to higher standards.

Health care legislation may be impossible to stop. But the GOP plans to gain from its fallout.

"I think the difference here is that Obama and the Democrats promised things were going to be different and obviously it is not different," Ed Rollins, a longtime GOP strategist told the Huffington Post. "Obama set the bar very high and he will be measured by his own words and I think to a certain extent when David Axelrod and Harry Reid are saying that this is the way it has always been done, after they ran a campaign saying they wanted to change the way things were normally done, that will really hurt them."

"A cornerstone of Barack Obama's appeal to the American people was the promise that he was something totally different," said Alex Conant, another GOP strategist. "But the way his health care legislation came together was Washington politics as usual. When you consider the backroom deals made to pass this bill, coupled with all the earlier broken promises like bringing lobbyists into the Administration, a pattern emerges."

...

[hfojvt]

1. ABC had a clip of him whining about the deficit cause by health care reform

this from the same dipwad who wants to make the Bush tax cuts permanent and eliminate the imaginary 'Death tax'. Thank goodness McCain created all that transparency about the billions of dollars going to Americans who make over $500,000 a year. Or not, since he never wants to talk about that.

[DesertFlower]

2. he still can't handle the fact that he lost. nt

[monmouth]

3. This showboating is all about his winning re-election. He wants to

look like he's busy and oh so important to the state of AZ. I hope they dump him, he's nutty and insane..

[ChicagoSuz219]

4. If by 'reform,' he means 'obstruct'... n/t