John McCain the "Pork Enabler"

[erpowers]

For anyone wanting to read some information about how John McCain is not the guy who tries to stop pork from coming out of the Senate you should read at least chapter 4 of the book "Wastrels of Defense". In the book, the author, Winslow T. Wheeler discusses, especially in chapter 4, how McCain usually just poses as a "pork buster" and the media falls for it everytime. Wheeler talks about McCain early in the book but goes into detail in chapter 4, which is entitled "Mr Smith is Dead". In the chapter Wheeler starts off discussing McCain's supposed actions to prevent pork from going into a defense bill. After detailing some of the threats made by McCain and some actions taken by McCain, Wheeler blows up the story. McCain had just been posing the whole time. The worst part may have been the fact that the media failed to tell the people.

Here is what happened, according to Wheeler. In 2002 a defense bill had been sent to Congress. When it got to Congress a number of admendments were added to the bill. There was an attempt to filibuster the bill, but the attempt failed. As a result of the vote for cloture only germane items could be added to the bill from that point on. A number of Senators tried to put items in the bill that were non-germane, but they failed because one Senator was willing to question whether the items were germane to the bill. That one Senator was John McCain. As a result of McCain's actions a number of Senators were extremely upset; they even shouted mean things at McCain. At one point, at least one Senator became upset with McCain's hypocrisy and explained that McCain had previously approved all the items he was now questioning. In other words Senators had talked with McCain and his staff before inserting items in the defense bill and they had been told it was okay to do so. However, once they got to the floor McCain questioned the germaneness of the item. In addition, instead of following through on his threat to make the Senate perform a roll call vote on each item added to the defense bill, McCain simiply gave another anti-pork speech stating the Senate should not be doing what it was doing. Then he left the Senate chamber.

According to Wheeler there was at least one story on the incident. It appeared in the Washington Post. However, the story was missing something. The story only talked about McCain's supposed efforts to get the pork taken out of the bill. It did not mention the fact that McCain had already approved the items he later questioned. That might have been the real reason so many Senators were so angry at McCain. He had already told them it was okay to insert the items they wanted in the bill then he turned around and made it seem like they were doing something he was against.

For a reference just look up Congressional Record, 6 June 2002, pp. S5174-75, S5177, and D571-72.

[Clear Blue Sky]

1. Straight Talk Express = Pork Express...nt