Think Progress

Despite Promise To Abolish Earmarks, McCain Uses Earmark-Funded Ferry As Campaign Trail Backdrop

Filed Under: Congress

By Matt on Apr 21st, 2008 at 3:07 pm

Despite Promise To Abolish Earmarks, McCain Uses Earmark-Funded Ferry As Campaign Trail Backdrop»

This week, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is embarking on what he calls the “It’s Time for Action Tour,” which he says will spotlight “forgotten Americans.” “We will travel to areas of this country that in many ways have been forgotten and left behind,” McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt told USA Today.

As part of the tour, McCain will visit “the remote town of Gee’s Bend” in Alabama in order “to ride a ferry across the Alabama River from Camden“:

“The ferry he will be riding is very important to that community. It’s both a good and terrible symbol. It’s good that it now exists, but it’s terrible it took so long to build it,” said Katie Wright, regional spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee.

But McCain’s appearance at the ferry conflicts with his contention that he will abolish earmarks from the federal budget, considering that the Gee’s Bend ferry was funded by a federal earmark in the 2005 Transportation/Treasury Appropriations Act.

The ferry that McCain will ride today was only able to be re-opened after 44 years because of the earmark:

A federal grant allowed the ferry to reopen in 2006 — 44 years after county leaders closed it to keep the black residents of Gee’s Bend from crossing the river to the county seat to push for civil rights. Without the ferry, Camden was an 80-mile round trip.

On ABC’s This Week yesterday, McCain said he would “do away” with the “pork-barrel-laden bills” from the past few years, which would presumably include the bill that funded the Gee’s Bend ferry. Watch it:

This is not the first time McCain has created cognitive dissonance by speaking in a pork-produced setting while making anti-earmark campaign promises. Earlier this month, on the same day that he called earmarks “an egregious process,” McCain made a speech at an air field in Florida that had “received almost $10M in earmarked funds” between 2001 and 2005.

UPDATE: Fox News aired a segment on McCain’s trip to Gee’s Bend today, but made no mention of the earmark. Watch McCain do a little dance:

UpdateLike Fox, NBC News reported on McCain's visit to the ferry without mentioning the earmark:

After speaking in front of the famed Edmund Pettus Bridge, he traveled to Gee's Bend, a brutally poor community long scarred by racial tensions. The Bend, isolated for decades by the spidery twists of the Alabama River, finally became more accessible with the institution of a reliable ferry -- which the senator rode today in recognition of its significance in healing the area's strife.

Comments

22 Responses to “Despite Promise To Abolish Earmarks, McCain Uses Earmark-Funded Ferry As Campaign Trail Backdrop”

alphainfinityomega Says:

The old coot doesn’t even know what he is flip-flopping about anymore.

_AIO_
April 21st, 2008 at 3:12 pm
robbez_92107 Says:

Don’t you know that when you catch McSame in a contradiction you only piss the old coot off?
April 21st, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Bobwurst Says:

Mccain is going for flipflop overload. He’s flopping and flipping and flapping and flupping and fleeping so much that no one can keep up with it and sooner or later no one will pay attention. Next he’ll be claiming that he didn’t spend 5 years as a pow, then he’ll claim he is against the Civil War and that we should leave General Lee alone, they were classmates.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Exit Stage Left Says:

McFlintstone is in over his head. He must be spending a bundle on staffers charged with keeping track of his positions. Can’t tell the flip-flops without a scorecard.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Zimzone Says:

Johnny ‘Earmark’ InSane, cajoling, refuting & lying about everything he’s ever done or said.

Isn’t one bad pilot as President enough?

Don’t let Johnny crash Airforce 1, too. Vote Blue for YOU!
April 21st, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Guido the Loving OBGYN Says:

lol what a goober
April 21st, 2008 at 3:31 pm
The Dogfather Says:

My friends, just remember — IOKIYAR.

He’s gonna ride the ferry and have pressers at airfields and then rail against the earmarks that funded them. You know, my friends, he was for these earmarks before he was against them, my friends.

And I still wanna know where his Amurkan Flag lapel pin is, my friends — he must be one a them thur turrurists, my friends.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:32 pm
PatrioticLiberalChristian Says:

If John would wear a flag pin, he’d probably be more in balance and not flip-flop around so much.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Freedom Rebel Says:

This however, is another earmark he wasn’t including in his numbers. His facts are always right, no one in his campaign can prove them, but that doesn’t mean they are not right…He has experts…

Obama, he is giving you all the material you need to bury him without saying one negative word. John is his own worsest enemy.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:37 pm
PatrioticLiberalChristian Says:

Oh, I forgot to add “my friends” to my last post. Thanks for the reminder The Dogfather.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Shayne Says:

McCain’s short term memory isn’t good enough to realize he’s flip flopping.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:43 pm
RUCerious Says:

the new meme ~ earmarks = wasteful gummint spending.
Even if they rejuvenate a community, add value to our quality of life, they are ‘pork’.
Stick to the BBQ when referring to pork, John Sidney McCain III, you’ll look much less dufoid.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Doc Rock Says:

Hypocrisy is a key plank in the McBush platform, particularly sweetened with mendacity and a liberal sprinkling of lobbyists.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:44 pm
5th Estate Says:

This is weird, because some “earmarks” are good, other’s are bad.
Of course it depends on the defintiion of “earmark”.
Whom does a given “earmark” benefit? The regioal commonwealth, or the regional political powers?

McCain has been simplifying of course, in typical Republican Manichean fashion–every issue should be reduced to an either/or choice, regardless.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Shayne Says:

I was told this weekend that the country isn’t ready for a woman president or an African-American president. Apparently McCain has heard this too so he isn’t worried about what he says any more.
April 21st, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Zimzone Says:

If you’ve never seen it, try to watch ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ movie sometime.

Is McCain a time bomb, ticking his way to the White House?
April 21st, 2008 at 3:58 pm
GeeDubs Says:

That’s OK…the pork will be fed to the media ‘base’ and all will be well, my friends. I swear to God, if I hear that phrase ‘My friends’ one more time I’m gonna puke. He isn’t a friend of mine, and I don’t want him to even think that by using the phrase he is ingratiating himself. He’s irritating the hell out of a lot of people by using it. On second thought, McD’Oh, go ahead and keep on using it and alienate more peeps!
April 21st, 2008 at 4:01 pm
hussein toasterhead Says:

Perhaps we’re looking at McCain’s flip-flopping all wrong. Perhaps it’s not that he’s saying one thing and doing another, or contradicting himself within the space of thirty seconds.

I think it’s entirely possible, from the standpoint of quantum mechanics, that McCain holds both views simultaneously. He is both pro-earmarks and anti-earmarks. He is both pro-Hagee and anti-Hagee. He is pro-torture and anti-torture.

He is, in short, the Schrödinger’s Candidate: a decoherent superposition of dimetrically opposite positions on critical issues that is maintained by the rigors of campaigning in a state just prior to objective collapse.

It would explain so much, really…
April 21st, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Buckie Boy Says:

McPorky - I don’t like pork, I like pork, I don’t like pork, I like pork, I don’t like pork, I like pork, I don’t like pork, I like pork, I don’t like pork, I like pork, I don’t like pork, I like pork, I don’t like pork, I like pork.

Hard for old grumpy McPorky to make up his mind.
April 21st, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Freedom Rebel Says:

#16 Zimzone Says:

If you’ve never seen it, try to watch ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ movie sometime.

Is McCain a time bomb, ticking his way to the White House?

I own that one, good point hadn’t thought about it. Good Movie.
April 21st, 2008 at 5:13 pm
DieNowForPeace Says:

Just by simply looking at McJowels, who would think he’s into pork?

/SNARKus OFFus
April 21st, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Pernell Says:

Oh you silly rabbits.

Story 32,345,348,565 that the media will not pick up on because it is true. If they do they will make excuses for McFlipflopper.

Serioulsy, this story has no legs because it is true. The press likes to promote deceptions which fit the co9nditioned conservtaive world view.

Now this is how Sun Myung Moon wants America to see the world and once again the media performed as they were guided to do.

People, this stuck a fork in the start of Gore’s 2000 campaign and is the kind of thing that had as much to do with rigging that election, subverting democracy, as the Supreme Court and voter suppression.

http://www.rollingstone.com/ news/ story/ 5920188/ the_press_vs_al_gore

One month after formally kicking off his presidential campaign, Vice President Al Gore paddled down the Connecticut River in New Hampshire on July 22nd, 1999, spreading his green theme of protecting the environment and pausing for a photo op. His message was quickly drowned out, though, when the Washington Times’ Bill Sammon reported that local authorities had granted Gore a special favor when they released nearly 4 billion gallons of water from a nearby dam into the drought-stricken river in order to keep the vice president’s boat afloat.

The price tag on the spilled water was quickly calculated at $7 million. The implication was clear: In a clumsy abuse of power, Al Gore, a supposed friend of the environment, gladly wasted precious natural resources to stage-manage a political event.

Following the lead of the Washington Times, an unabashedly conservative outlet often hostile to Democrats, the rest of the mainstream press pounced, not only upbraiding Gore for his supposed hypocrisy but also suggesting that the campaign miscue was just the latest example of a foundering presidential run. The New York Times detailed the “mishap,” the Washington Post ridiculed Gore’s FOUR BILLION GALLONS FOR A PHOTO OP, Newsweek dubbed it the “photo op from hell,” and CNN covered the “wave of criticism after floodgates are opened on a New Hampshire river to keep Al Gore afloat.”

In retrospect, the most notable thing about the whole story was just how murky the facts were. Nobody from the Gore campaign asked for the water to be released. (Concerned about security, the Secret Service did.) As for the amount of water released, it was 500 million gallons, not 4 billion - a fact that Sammon reported a week later, long after other media ran with the original story. And the local utility company that operates the dam was already dumping millions of gallons of water into the parched Connecticut River every day. The routine release had simply been moved up a couple of hours to accommodate Gore’s trip. The $7 million figure turned out to be completely inaccurate, since the water was not wasted. Instead, it passed through hydroelectric turbines and generated power that the utility company sold to other utilities.

“I felt like we’d fallen through the looking glass,” says Sharon Francis, executive director of the Connecticut River Joint Commissions, who coordinated Gore’s visit on behalf of the region and for days fielded press queries about the derided canoe trip. She describes the media coverage as “fictional” and “nasty” and “spun to sound like something corrupt.” […]

If the media charade surrounding Gore’s Connecticut River trip had been a one-time event - nothing more than bored political reporters trying too hard to kick up some dust during a slow summer news week - this incident would be forgotten to history. Instead, it is emblematic of the way the political press operated throughout the campaign, falsely reporting trivia about Gore and challenging his character in order to score points.

The coverage was at times blatantly dishonest, and, worse, reporters seemed so determined to stick to pre-assigned scripts (”Gore is a phony”) that they balked at correcting obvious errors that began to circulate.
April 23rd, 2008 at 5:16 pm