Cheap Shot McCain

For all his rhetoric about running a high-minded campaign, John McCain sure doesn't mind stabbing his own friends in the back while protecting his enemies. Just look at his appearance in New Orleans on Thursday which was done while he was at the same time excoriating the North Carolina GOP for running an ad critical of Barack Obama:

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain took stock of still- hurricane-damaged areas of New Orleans on Thursday and declared that if the disaster had happened on his watch, he would have immediately landed his plane at the nearest Air Force base, drawing a sharp contrast to President Bush's handling of the tragedy.

McCain called the response to Katrina "a perfect storm" of mismanagement by federal, state and local governments.

The Arizona senator walked a few blocks of the hard-hit Lower 9th Ward, passing tidy rebuilt stucco houses standing next to abandoned structures, their facades still spray-painted with the markings of rescue workers who went door to door nearly three years ago searching for bodies. FEMA trailers still dot the neighborhood. McCain said his teenage daughter Bridget had been there with a volunteer youth group a few weeks ago to help in the recovery.

"Never again, never again, will a disaster of this nature be handled in the disgraceful way it was handled," McCain declared.

He made the same pledge over and over during the day: "I promise you, never again."

McCain is campaigning this week in what he calls "forgotten" areas of the country, and he assured New Orleans residents that their situation was not lost on him.

"I've been going to places that are perhaps very cynical about government," he told students during a town hall at Xavier University. Trying to reach out for the votes of Democrats and independents, he pledged to be a president who would take action to erase that cynicism.

"As president of the United States, I'm not going to leave anybody behind," he said.

He said that beyond the most immediate needs of people in New Orleans, such as affordable housing, the top priorities now were to achieve the government's goal to fortify the city against 100-year storms by 2011, and to move beyond that find a way to protect the region against Category 5 hurricanes.

On the latter issue, he said, "It's time to end the studies and it's time to act."

McCain was unsparing in his criticism of the Bush administration on Katrina, and said members of Congress must share some of the blame for putting money into pork-barrel projects when those dollars should have been used to fortify the region against disaster. He said his record was clean on that count, with a consistent opposition to wasteful spending.

Without mentioning Bush directly, McCain said that when Katrina struck, "If I had been president, I would have ordered the plane landed at the nearest base and I'd of been over here." He repeated that later, saying, "I would've landed my airplane at the nearest Air Force base and come over personally."

McCain said the missteps of the Bush administration were well chronicled and undisputed, citing unqualified leaders, poor communication and a failure to recognize the dimensions of the problem.

This makes me angry on a number of levels. First of all, where's the "straight talk" about the inept Mayor "School Bus" Nagin and Gov. Overwhelmed, the Dem who used to run Louisiana? How did this become just a federal problem.

Secondly, there are photos of McCain on the day Katrina roared ashore getting a birthday cake from President Bush. As a U.S. Senator McCain could have easily gotten military transportation to the hurricane area if he had just asked for it. Thousands of volunteers have gone down there, including many in the immediate aftermath of the storm. If McCain had such amazing insight into what should have been done, why didn't he go? There was nothing stopping him.

His habit of abandoning his friends and making nice with his enemies has long been infuriating. And what is he getting in return for all this love he's showing Obama and Clinton? Obama is accusing him of weakness since he can't get the North Carolina GOP to pull their ad, he's getting tarred with his own preacher problem as he's being held responsible for the words of Pastor John Hagee who blamed Katrina on God's wrath against homosexuals, and he's being blamed by Clinton for not acting quickly to rebuild the 9th Ward in New Orleans. McCain's attitude toward his political enemies is just plain naive.

Folks, this is the kind of stuff that makes it impossible for me to vote for him in November. It's a shame that they all can't lose.