Can ANYONE explain why McLame needs to be in the Gulf???

[KansasVoter]

Are people and the MSM really going to buy this story? Why in the hell does McLame need to be there? It is pissing me off.

[PDittie]

1. He wants to show Palin some black people.

She's never seen any.

[nycmjkfan]

11. He wanted to show Palin

Mississippi, one of 40 states she had yet to see.

[KansasVoter]

18. LOL...that is damn funny!

[Imagevision]

2. Because McCain must show his ability to lead (and get free news coverage)

[johnaries]

3. Photo Op. Because last time he and Shrub were eating birthday cake.

He is politicizing the misery of others.

[pdxmom]

4. Bush just said he wasn't going to go down there now, because he

didn't want to get in the way and distract from the preparations. Evidently, McSame believes that he can go down there, because no one will pay any attention to him.

[yourguide]

6. bingo

[Kadie]

5. Because he was busy last time. He had a birthday party to attend.

[Johonny]

7. they found out there might be grief that can be exploited

[Bluzmann57]

8. No. People won't buy it, media will, especially fox.

and who in the hell knows why McCain needs to be in the gulf area? If he was a Senator from Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, or Texas, it would make sense. He would be showing concern for his constituency. Now it just looks like he is pandering for votes, especially after his partying during Katrina.

[Blue-Jay]

9. He needs to take a swim in the gulf.

A long one.

[sandnsea]

10. My daughter doesn't

And she's the low-info voter they try to fool. She also thinks Sarah Palin is a joke.

[liberalmuse]

12. It will make an excellent photo-op, of course.

Obama/Biden are staying away, because of their large SS tail. They feel it will disrupt efforts there. McCain really doesn't give a shit if his tail causes some logistical problems and takes away from the current effort to get people out of NO. As long as he gets some good pics of appearing to be concerned and helping the people of NO. I'm sorry, but all this rings so incredibly false after the inaction we saw during Katrina. How many of us screamed and cried while watching helplessly as those same fuckers did nothing while bodies were just left where they lay, and people were still dying? The phony concern is galling. Where the fuck were he and Bush in 2005? Oh yeah, eating cake and playing guitar and doing NOTHING. This galls. I do believe Obama and Biden are doing the right thing by not going there, and standing by to see where they can be most useful.

[randr]

13. Heard they were passing out free cake

[still_one]

14. chill. They will not be able to use the convention to bash us as much

The focus will be the storm, which should also highlight the effects of global warming which they don't believe it. FYI, another storm is forming called Hanna

Let mccain go down there, and pretend he is taking charge

[GreenTea]

15. PHOTO-OPS silly! Showing how much he cares, and how his government will always come to the rescue

of the American people....there couldn't be a better photo-op than McCain helping people while his republican convention is going on.

[no_hypocrisy]

16. It's a gratuitous opportunity to look presidential.

Reminds me of the scene in The Candidate (1972) when Bill McKay (Robert Redford) is flown in to observe fire fighters battling a big one in California, only to arrive AFTER the incumbent candidate for the Senate, Crocker Jarvis has arrived (hey, John McCain kinda reminds me of Don Porter . . . ).

[retread]

17. So his veep pick will be near the Gulf and become an "expert" on all things gulf related? n/t

[totodeinhere]

19. This hurricane may well be a big benefit to the pukes.

Shrub and Darth Cheney can use it as an excuse to stay away from the convention, and the less we hear about those two at the convention the better it is for McCain.

[Jade Fox]

20. Another gimmick from a desperate campaign.....

Where will he speak in the middle of a hurricane? Who will stand by to listen to him?

A few people in a small venue (which I'm guessing is where McCain will end up) won't exactly have the same impact of the 84,000 cheering, ecstatic people in Denver.

Let McCain be McCain. I'm starting to get the impression he doesn't really want to be President, and that the GOP is in full-on self-destruct mode.

[Jade Fox]

21. dupe

[TexasLady]

22. It will help him to continue to 'sink'

them's deep waters.

[windbreeze]

23. to Politicize the disaster that's going to result...why else?

He's going to base the rest of his run on the backs of those who suffer from this and make them a lot of empty promises...after all, it isn't him..he has any number of safe houses he can/could escape too...but the real point is....needed repairs have NOT been done, New Orleans/gulf coast is still a mess...and * is at the very least, responsible for the results of Katrina in regards to New Orleans, since he's the one who kept cutting the funding for the upkeep of the levees since 2001....he had viewed a computer program that was developed to show the possible damage from a cat 3 hurricane, right before he decided once again to cut funding for the levees by another $73 million dollars...in June of 2005, a couple months before Katrina hit...in fact, this morning, I watched a video showing that repairs to the flood wall were done with newspaper, instead of the recommended sponge...newspaper, mind you...in a flood wall...then covered over with a layer of some kinda stuff that didn't even stick very well to the concrete wall itself...it could be pulled loose, iow.....how well will those hold, I wonder?? God help those people...all of them...and I hope this backfires in their faces bigtime...wb

[bullwinkle428]

24. This jagoff did the exact same thing in the wake of the Iowa floods,

DIRECTLY IGNORING THE REQUEST OF THE IOWA GOVERNOR'S OFFICE:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2008-06-19-3644858201_x.htm

[Emillereid]

25. Grandstanding - pure and simple!

[yourguide]

26. Yes

To get ahead of this:

http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/04/8059_john_mccains_mi.html

But McCain's record on Hurricane Katrina suggests that he was part of the problem, not the solution. McCain was on Face the Nation on August 28, 2005, as Katrina gathered in the Gulf Coast. He said nothing about it. One day later, when Katrina made landfall in Louisiana, McCain was on a tarmac at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, greeting President Bush with a cake in celebration of McCain's 69th birthday. Three days later, with the levees already breached and New Orleans filling with water, McCain's office released a three-sentence statement urging Americans to support the victims of the hurricane.

Though McCain issued a statement the next week calling on Congress to make sacrifices in order to fund recovery efforts, he was quoted in The New Leader on September 1 cautioning against over-spending in support of Katrina's victims. "We also have to be concerned about future generations of Americans," he said. "We're going to end up with the highest deficit, probably, in the history of this country."

That attitude was borne out in McCain's actions and votes. Forty Senators and 100 members of Congress visited New Orleans before he did; he finally got there in March 2006. He voted against establishing a Congressional commission to examine the Federal, State, and local responses to Katrina in med-September 2005. He repeated that vote in 2006. He voted against allowing up to 52 weeks of unemployment benefits to people affected by the hurricane, and in 2006 voted against appropriating $109 billion in supplemental emergency funding, including $28 billion for hurricane relief.

Shortly after the disaster in New Orleans, McCain did introduce a bill that sought to improve communications mechanisms for first-responders and authorities. The bill failed to go anywhere, and McCain later voted against other bills that had similar provisions.

McCain may talk sympathetically about New Orleans' recovery this week, but the record shows that when it mattered most, McCain failed to act. His passion for fiscal conservatism blinded him to a city and a region in need, and his Time for Action is simply too late.

[Riddler]

27. There's no way he could compete with DNC and Obama's speech,

so he has to do something to make it look like he's not trying to compete with them

[DangerousRhythm]

28. I saw him with Palin and the gang... waving, smiling.

I was absolutely disgusted.

[Heather MC]

29. He thinks if he flaps his arms fast enough he can make the storm go away