I think this ad is great! Of course, there are some who hate anything MoveOn does, but someone needed to point out the hyprocrisy involved in McCain telling people to get back to work.
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McCain has "justified" his failure to do his job (you know, vote) as follows:
"First of all, I have not been there for a number of votes. The same thing happened in the campaign of 2000," he said. "The people of Arizona understand I'm running for president of the United States."
He was missing votes that Obama and Clinton both showed up for in the middle of their contentious primary, all for the sake of fundraising, and he STILL can't get above 45% in the national polls.
MCain't was the presumptive nominee for 3 months and missed tons of votes. Obama was the presumptive nominee for less than 24 hours before he was back on the Senate floor.
Indeed, McC[ompl]ain hasn't bothered to show up since April 8th. He's missed some big votes even outside of climate change votes. He missed the GI Bill vote (which he's still taking credit for even though he opposed it), he missed the FISA vote. Indeed, according to the Washington Posts' site, he's missed the most votes of anyone in the Congress, and he wants to tell them to get back to work? Would he have bothered to show up if they did?
And while we're on the subject, when he DOES bother to show up, he's hardly as mavericky as he likes to pretend he is:
In some ways, three votes in 2003 illustrate the complex relationship McCain has with his party and the limited effect his resistance has had.
During a six-week span in the spring, McCain repeatedly voted with Democrats seeking to limit Bush's budget and tax-cut package that year. Even so, Cheney ensured the GOP prevailed on 51-50 votes each time.
The overall tax-cut legislation that year passed by two votes and over McCain's resistance.
These days, McCain travels the campaign trail vowing to make permanent those same temporary Bush tax cuts.
In 10 other cases in which the vice president broke a tie, McCain voted with the GOP every time.
In all the close votes, McCain clearly helped Democrats on just four occasions over the past decade.
In May 2006, for example, McCain and 10 other Republicans voted to put off an amendment offered by Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. Democrats managed to fend off the amendment, which would have barred those who originally entered the U.S. illegally from receiving Social Security benefits for the work they did before becoming legal workers.
The amendment failed by a 50-49 vote with McCain's help. But, in the end, neither party managed to achieve significant changes to the nation's immigration laws.
Granted, according to the Washington Post page, Obama is third on the list for missed votes, but he's not the one running around talking about how Congress needs to get back to work.