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Chutzpah Watch: McCain calls on lawmakers to spend more time on the job in Congress

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As a rule, I’m inclined to cut senators (from both parties) some slack for missing votes during their presidential campaign. It’s tough to hold down a day job while running for president.

But it’s much harder to be understanding when a candidate fails to show up for work for months on end, and then lambastes his colleagues for heading to their home districts/states during the summer recess.

While some Republican members of the House are having a jolly time in Washington trying to embarrass the Democrats into returning to Congress to pass an energy bill, Senator John McCain on Monday issued a personal challenge to his Democratic rival to “come back into town and come back to work.”

Mr. McCain, the presumed Republican nominee, urged Congress to abandon its five-week summer recess and return to the Capitol to address the nation’s energy needs.

“Congress should come back into session,” Mr. McCain said after touring the National Label Company, in Lafayette Hill, a suburb of Philadelphia, according to a pool report. “I am willing to come back off the campaign trail.”

Earlier in the day, McCain told a biker rally, “Tell em’ to come back and get to work. When I’m president of the United States, I’m not going to let them go on vacation.”

This strikes me as amusing for two reasons: the hypocrisy and the misplaced priorities.

On the latter point, McCain hasn’t been “willing” to leave the campaign trail for anything, but all of a sudden, he’s ready to head back to his day job to tackle a coastal drilling bill that wouldn’t do any good anyway.

Brad Johnson noted a handful of the bills McCain could have come back to the Hill to vote on, but decided he couldn’t be bothered.

– 4/26/07: Iraq War funding (passed 51-46)
– 6/7/07: Immigration reform (filibustered 34-61)
– 6/11/07: Condemning Attorney General Alberto Gonzales (filibustered 53-38)
– 7/26/07: Homeland Security (passed 85-8)
– 8/3/07: Wiretapping (FISA) authorization (passed 60-28)
– 9/27/07: Children’s health insurance (passed 69-30; vetoed)
– 2/6/08: Stimulus package with support for renewable energy (filibustered by one vote)
– 4/23/08: Fair Pay Act (filibustered 56-42)
– 5/22/08: The 21st-Century GI Bill (passed 75-22)
– 6/6/08: Global warming legislation (filibustered 48-36)

McCain wouldn’t leave the campaign trail for any of these votes, but he is willing to head back for a pointless debate on a pointless drilling initiative. It helps highlight just how serious McCain is about governing — or in this case, not.

The hypocrisy is just as unnerving.

Mr. McCain, who has served in Congress for 26 years, has missed numerous votes on crucial legislation, particularly during this prolonged campaign. But he said he was ready to return to session and criticized Congress for “doing nothing.”

“I call on Senator Obama to call on Congress to come back into town and come back to work,” he said. “Come off their recess. Come off their vacation and address this energy crisis for America and don’t leave until you do.”

This crisis has been unfolding for quite a while. Where has McCain been? He hasn’t cast a vote in the Senate in four months. He has the worst attendance record in the chamber, and that includes Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.), who took months off to recover from a brain hemorrhage. And he has the gall to whine about lawmakers heading home for a scheduled recess?

If McCain wants to blow off his Senate duties to run for president, I understand. But as hilzoy put it, “[I]t would behoove him not to start lecturing his fellow Senators on the need to “start working for the American people, and not for ourselves” until he manages to put his own personal ambition aside and do his job.”

Comments

  • tomj

    says:

    I hate to scam this post for something off topic, but Chuck Todd is hosting on MSNBC 3pm eastern. I haven’t seen him host before.

    Maybe he’ll mention how many votes McCain has missed in the last congress.

  • Stevio

    says:

    Please, please, don’t connivence him to come back. Let him grow old peacefully and w/o ruining anything more that he already has…

  • Dudley

    says:

    But the MSM will never call him on it. Or anything else. It’s the same old lazy he said, the other side said crap in every paper, and McCain will win because his Rove-family handlers understand that the truth is no obstacle to “creating a narrative.”

  • ROTFLMLiberalAO

    says:

    T-minus ten seconds on McCain headline on MSM websites everywhere:

    John “Workhorse” McCain dares Congress to attend to soaring gas prices

  • appalled

    says:

    McBush, McRove, has become pure evil ….. whatever he had as a soul is now simple an abscess filled with the puss of evil. What is fucking incredible is how many Americans either believe all his lies, deceptions, and misrepresentations .. and how your corporate media spreads them for these people to believe in them in the first place. One the other hand when you have a country in which 30 percent are not just fat or overweight but are in fact OBESE, and another 40 percent fat or over weight, a country in which more of you vote for American Idol than for your own president, a country in which 30 percent of you can even find your own country on a world map, a country in which emits over 25 percent of pollutants into the global air, a country that pays it’s corporate journalists millions while your teachers make $30,000, a country that is feared the most by the rest of the world, a country in which 50 million of you have zero health insurance, and another 70 million are under insured while your ‘doctors’ not only kill 300,000 of you per year but none the less struggle to figure out which of their five or six Mercedes to drive on any given day, a country that is so narcissitic that it thinks the entire world revolves around it and pays zero attention to world events ( just look at your evening ‘news’ programs ) , a country in which one out of ten of your citizens is in prison, is it any real wonder that not only could you have something like Bush be your president, but now something as evil as McBush could be your next president ? Is it your country that is indeed THE EVIL EMPIRE.

  • Cal Gal

    says:

    One wonders just what it will take for the MSM to get over their “John McCain is a straight talker” obsession.

    Don’t hold your breath.

  • Steve

    says:

    When I’m president of the United States, I’m not going to let them go on vacation.

    First, the hypocrisy—the dirty old man (declaring that he wants to put his trophy troll wife in a topless/nude contest at a biker booze-out) who’s allergic to doing an honest day’s work tells everyone else to get back to work. Of course he wants Obama off the campaign trail—unilateral surrender! Not this time, McScrooge!

    Then, the baselessness, by declaring that he has the power to force Congress to stay in session. He doesn’t. It’s just another lie. John McLie!

  • Cal Gal

    says:

    Um, if he’s not in Washington, how can he exhort them to “come back”?

    Shouldn’t that be “go back” John?

  • chrenson

    says:

    This is just getting flat out ridiculous! If you were a high school student standing at the mall and excoriating other high school students for not being in class, you’d wind up in the penny fountain with an Orange Julius up your ass.

    There is no end to the bullshit minutia Republican voters will believe. And throw in a “national crisis” like high gas prices [still half the price of gas in Bulgaria, but whatever…] and you’ll get the ear of every freakin’ fence-sitter there is.

    I swear, if we somehow elect this dust-shitting, two-faced fucktard our new president, then we deserve the continued ruin that will undoubtedly come from it.

  • Winkandanod

    says:

    Earlier in the day, McCain told a biker rally, “Tell em’ to come back and get to work. When I’m president of the United States, I’m not going to let them go on vacation.”

    That’s tough talk. I’m sure when he’s preznit the coequal “democrat” congressional majority will sit chained it’s figurative desk until McCain’t tells them they can go on vacation.

    Better yet, why doesn’t he just call up his hug buddy Georgie boy and tell him to recall congress?

  • BuzzMon

    says:

    Boy, the oil companies must really be cracking the whip on the Republicans on this new lease issue. I guess that they see an opportunity, and Big Oil is taking it’s shot.
    Remember how little time Congress spent in session when the Republicans were in the majority? How times change, eh?
    This is a lot like Bush cutting his vacation short & flying to Washington to sign the Terry Schaivo bill.
    The real masters say jump & the Repugs bark “how high?”

    My apologies to all the Pug owners out there for making this connection.

  • Racer X

    says:

    Hypocrisy?

    John McCain?

    This is the “family values” candidate who divorced his disabled wife for the half-his-age beer heiress (who he now calls a cunt and encourages to enter biker rally “beauty contests”).

    The guy doesn’t do hypocracy, he IS hypocrisy.

  • Molly Weasley

    says:

    Worst attendance record in Congress. Hasn’t bothered to show up since April.

    I HAVE heard various media types report that in the past, but will they bother to repeat it now with this latest line? Doubt it.

    Interestingly, the Arizona Republic (a paper McCain no longer talks to) has reported this time and again, and Arizona voters have noticed.

  • Dennis-SGMM

    says:

    Just what exactly is Congress supposed to do? Vote to outlaw the phrase “peak oil”? Maybe they could vote statehood for Venezuela, Russia and Iran. Better still, Congress can unanimously declare that there are a trillion barrels of oil beneath the Mojave Desert.
    The problem has only been obvious since the Arab oil embargo and the Republicans were in the forefront of making sure that nothing was done to reduce consumption. McCain sounds like Gov. LePetomaine in “Blazing Saddles:”
    “We have to protect our phoney baloney jobs here, gentlemen! We must do something about this immediately! Immediately! Immediately! Harrumph! Harrumph! Harrumph! “

  • cintibud

    says:

    Wouldn’t a commercial featuring Sen. Tim Johnson commenting about how his attendance was even better than McCain’s be a pretty effective reply?

  • Lance

    says:

    McCain told a biker rally, “Tell em’ to come back and get to work. When I’m president of the United States, I’m not going to let them go on vacation.”

    Exactly how? Is he going to call special sessions every time Congress goes on leave?

    And would someone like to remind the American people it was the Bush Administration insisting on going on vacation in 2001 that basically allowed 9/11 to happen?

    Is anyone NOT going to see this is a joke?

  • SF

    says:

    Maybe someone will have noted this before my post clears, but I read last week that McC had collected (one cannot say earned) $52K in Senate salary since last showing up for work, roughly $4K more than the average middle-middle class income of two adults. If O doesn’t slam him with some of this, I give up.

  • zeitgeist

    says:

    Any McCain Chutzpah Watch has to include this doozy, as reported at MSNBC.com:

    “While visiting Wagner Equipment in Aurora, Colo., McCain told employees, “The bottom line is that Sen. Obama’s words, for all their eloquence and passion, don’t mean all that much, and that’s the problem with Washington. It’s not just the Bush administration and it’s not just the Democratic Congress. It’s that everyone in Washington says whatever it takes to get elected, or… score the political points of the day.”

    Everyone indeed — first and foremost 72-flip-flops and counting, 26 years in Washington, John “Weathervane” McCain.

  • rugger0

    says:

    What’s really ridiculous is that the GOP blocked the consideration of the energy bill prior to adjournment (it’s only technically a vacation, BTW), because they objected to D amendments that would have required Big Oil to drill on leases they already have, and to NOT ship said oil overseas, things that actually make sense IF one is trying to increase capacity in the USA. And, of course the windfall profits provision, but I think the first two are more damning. So, instead of working to solve the problem, the RSRs [Rubber Stamp Republicans] stage a typically hypocritical and fact-free publicity stunt, which was so bad even W wouldn’t play along nor the RSR leadership cut into their vacation (C&L has Boehner playing golf).

    And, FWIW, Congress is technically in session, since they are trying to stop recess appointments.

  • MsJoanne

    says:

    #24, That was just one that the GOP blocked.

    They blocked using the 68 million already leased acres.

    They blocked stopping oil speculation in the markets.

    They blocked alternative energy initiatives.

    Damn, there was a fourth one, but I can’t think of it now (and I am in a class so I can’t look – sorry! Anyone?)

    And that was in something like three weeks!!

    The GOP is the embodiment of the term hypocracy and McCain is their spiritual leader (or host).

  • Mike Chirdon

    says:

    Is this from his speech at the biker rally that CNN keeps playing? Because the rest of the speech is also pretty embarrassing, too.

    He can hardly get the words, “who is tired of paying four dollars a gallon for gas.” Seriously. I’m not exactly sure what he said, but there were a lot of words that didn’t belong there.

    And the sound of motorcycle engines is the sound of freedom? Dear God….

  • The Answer is Orange

    says:

    “I call on Senator Obama to call on Congress to come back into town and come back to work,” he said. “Come off their recess. Come off their vacation and address this energy crisis for America and don’t leave until you do.”

    Even McCaniac thinks Obama has the power to compel Congress. I guess he believed the Moses commercial.

    Worthless hack.

  • BuzzMon

    says:

    “Weathervane McCain”.

    Theme song (clipped from “Bohemian Rhapsody”)

    “Any way the wind blows, doesn’t really matter to meeeee…..”

  • chrenson

    says:

    And the sound of motorcycle engines is the sound of freedom?

    Goddamn right! Jesus rides a Harley. So did Thomas Jefferson and Abe Lincoln. Why, the Underground Railroad was nothing but Bike Week at Myrtle Beach. There are no Harleys in communist Russia. Only toil, misery and stale, gray bread.

  • JoeW

    says:

    It’s an old axiom of advertising: Sell your flaws as a feature. I’m sure some clever surrogate will be along to explain that McSame’s skimpy voting record is proof he’s not been part of the problem.

    Is there anything besides a massive media sales blitz that honestly accounts for McSame’s reputation?

  • goto L

    says:

    ‘McCain told a biker rally, “Tell em’ to come back and get to work. When I’m president of the United States, I’m not going to let them go on vacation.”’

    That’s how fucking stupid he takes the American people to be. He thinks that most Americans have no idea that the Constitution grants co-equal powers to the Congress. McCain is betting that Americans think the “Commander in Chief” is just an Americanized name for “King.”

  • Stephen Daugherty

    says:

    The great irony, if I recall correctly, is that Congresscritters were given longer work weeks under the new Democratic Congress, than under McCain’s Republican Majority. We work our asses off. Let’s see McCain show up for a few critical votes now and then.

    As for that thing with McCain’s wife? I’m no snob and no prude, but good God, do we really want the world to think that THIS is the best we can do?

  • Bruno

    says:

    goto L @ 32 said:

    That’s how fucking stupid he takes the American people to be. He thinks that most Americans have no idea that the Constitution grants co-equal powers to the Congress.

    I think McCain is right about that one. Not about much else, but he certainly has that one figured out.

  • libra

    says:

    McCain wouldn’t leave the campaign trail for any of these votes, […] — CB

    Doesn’t matter. Only obsessives like us pay any attention to actual voting records. The rest of the population — whose attention span is just long enough to reproduce — has no clue beyond “do nothing Congress”. All they know — and resent — is the long vacations, super pay and even better healthcare.

    During my “shilling for Dems” stint at the fair a couple of weeks ago, I got into a conversation with one of the guys manning the Repub booth and we ended up brangling about the 21st c GI Bill. The guy said something like “well, McCain voted against it because” yada, yada, yada rolling out all the talking points. He was left, literally *speechless* when I told him that, actually, no; McCain *didn’t* vote against it. McCain couldn’t be bothered to give up his fundraisers and his mid-day naps to come and vote. He had *no idea* of McCain’s dereliction of duty. And that was (as I was told later) the effing *head* of the Repub “cell” for the county.

    To be fair… The lady (Dem) who was with me on that shift was equally misinformed; she kept saying “McCain voted against it”. He didn’t. He *said* he was against it, but he didn’t dare risk offending the vets and never put his vote where his mouth was. He’s a small man in more ways than one.

  • libra

    says:

    Stephen Daugherty, @33

    You do remember correctly; the House, at any rate, went from a 3-day “week” to a 4.5 day one under Pelosi. To much gnashing of teeth and crocodile tears from the Repubs who felt their family lives were being disrupted by the extra demands.

  • Bruno

    says:

    Hurray for libra on her volunteering to get a sane person elected to the office of President, and actually taking the time to inform/educate people about what is going on.

    We need more people like her. Keep up the GREAT work.

    I hope your work paid off in planting some doubt with Republicans and their talking points, and convincing some low-info voters to pay attention.

  • SteveT

    says:

    Earlier in the day, McCain told a biker rally, “Tell em’ to come back and get to work. When I’m president of the United States, I’m not going to let them go on vacation.”

    Once again:
    The summer is now two-thirds over and McCain still can’t be bothered to haul his cadaverous ass back to Washington to submit a bill to make his “summer gas tax holiday” happen.

    I am still offering a fruit basket (or a takeaway Barbeque order) to the first member of the corporate-controlled media who asks McCain this question and gets the answer on T.V.

  • libra

    says:

    Thanks, Bruno, @37. But it’s a team effort; without Benen, I probably wouldn’t have had the ammo to shoot at empty heads with. Ditto for most commenters here, who contribute more bullets (and a hatchet or two, when bullets run out). Without my son, I (probably) would not have discovered TCBR by myself… Thus the chain is forged and may it strangle this malignant growth — which labels itself “Republican” — on our country.

  • azportsider

    says:

    Molly @ 18 says:

    “Interestingly, the Arizona Republic (a paper McCain no longer talks to) has reported this time and again, and Arizona voters have noticed.”

    Damn right we’ve noticed. But it’s a mixed blessing. On the one hand we get no representation in the Senate (Kyl, our other Senator, is an even worse Bushbot); but on the other, St McClone can’t do us any real harm when he’s not even there. Of course, he does occasionally show up when the issue (and his vote) don’t really matter, and demonstrates his maverickiness for the media who created him. Gotta play to the base, you know.

  • AgentX

    says:

    This is going on the flip-flop list. Or the “I can’t believe he said that” list.

    How many jobs are out there where you don’t have to show up for months at a time?
    Is this what’s gonna happen in the McCain presidency? He’s gonna show up only to fight a war, then leave everything else to surrogates while he watches Matlock in the Lincoln bedroom!