McCain does not work as hard as the rest of his peers!
Bush’s Work Habits Set the Example
Fact: President Bush has been on vacation for almost 30% of his two terms as the ‘leader of the free world’. He either goes to Camp David, Maryland, or Crawford, Texas. Russia invades the neighboring state of Georgia and where is the president? On vacation.
In the month leading to 9/11, President Bush was on vacation even while there were indications of an attack on the U.S. Osama bin Laden was certainly well known by the secret service agencies.
Then there was one of the most devastating natural events in U.S. history - when Hurricane Katrina destroyed the city of New Orleans.
John McCain’s Work Habits
John McCain likes his time off. He does not like to work weekends and it seems he limits his campaign events to one day.
By his own admission, he has missed more than half the Senate's votes in the past year and he shows no sign of changing this dismal record. McCain said: "I've missed a lot of votes, and there's no doubt about it".
Last spring running mates Senator Obama and Senator Clinton had planned to meet with McCain for a discussion about the role of faith in the political arena. Is it any surprise that McCain was a no-show.
John McCain’s Voting Record Wins the Award
The award, that is, for the worst attendance record of any Senator. So far, McCain has missed almost 64% of votes in the 110th Congress.
McCain’s lousy attendance record was worse even than that of Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD). Johnson, who by the way, had suffered a brain hemorrhage. McCain actually gets paid for lack of attendance. Is this what the American tax payer is getting for their money? Meanwhile, he is after a job that will give him free housing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
It’s not just that campaigning is hard work – it’s just how McCain works. As little as possible it seems. When you consider his record over almost three decades, he tops the list. Someone ought to give him a T-shirt as the grand prize for all his time spent working for the American people. It would say: I Missed The Most and I’m Proud of It!.
As a former naval officer and POW during the Vietnam War, one would think that if he has any real passion at all he would support any bill designed to help veterans. But the spring 2008 GI Bill was missing one thing – John McCain. That’s right, he didn’t even bother to show up for the vote. It gets worse – he ended up fibbing to veterans that indeed he did support the yea vote..
McCain’s Completely Ignores Afghanistan
McCain is the top Republican on the Senate Armed Service Committee. Yet, he has not attended any of the committee’s six hearings on Afghanistan over the past two years. Senator Obama attended the full Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Afghanistan in March 2007. He also made the most of the opportunity to ask the former commander of NATO, Gen. James L. Jones about Pakistan. Jones too sat before the Senate Armed Services Committee that week but the good ole’ boy from Arizona just didn’t make it.
A reasonable person might be wise enough not to shoot his mouth off about someone else’s attendance records when his own are so publicly dismal. Apparently, McCain is not that smart because he boldly scolded Obama for failing to schedule any hearings on Afghanistan in the last year and a half. Obama is chairperson of the European Affairs Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which supervises military operations in Afghanistan.
“As the situation in Afghanistan grows more tense, it is time for us to hold a hearing on the mission there,” Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., a McCain clone and ranking member of Obama's subcommittee wrote in a letter to the Illinois senator. “The success of Afghanistan is critical to the future of NATO and vital to our efforts to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban.”
The Senate Armed Services Committee hearings listed on the committee Web Site for the past two years shows that McCain's committee has held six hearings that included the word "Afghanistan" in the title or “Central Command”. The latter is responsible for U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
McCain did not attend even one. The following list captures the more egregious McCain misses:
- On both May 3, 2007 and March 4, 2008, he did not attend the hearings with Adm. William Fallon, at that time the CentCom commander, with authority over Afghanistan...
- Then there was the hearing on June 7, 2007, for the nomination of Gen. Douglas Lute to be the White House war lord with responsibility for Afghanistan.
- McCain did show when Gen. Jones testified before the Armed Services Committee on Sept. 6, 2007 on Iraq but he showed up late..
- He entirely missed the hearing on the Afghanistan strategy on February 14 with representatives from the State Department and Marine Lt. Gen. John Sattler.
- He also missed an extremely important April, 10, 2008 hearing on the war in Iraq and the "situation in Afghanistan" where Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Michael Mullen both testified.
- McCain was again a no-show on Feb. 6, 2008 for the hearing to determine the fiscal policy for authorizations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
- In February, 2006 when Republicans were in charge of Congress, Gen. Jones testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and only two Republican senators bothered to show up.
- Sens. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., and Richard Lugar, R-Ind., were the only senators who spoke at the hearing. Where the heck were Biden, Dodd and Obama?
Is it so unreasonable to expect Senator McCain to attend the most intense and critical meetings on Iraq and Afghanistan – virtually the two hottest spots on the political landscape since Vietnam? Americans and the world it touches deserve better than this.
