Posing the first question in a Denver town hall meeting yesterday, a Vietnam veteran challenged Sen. John McCain on his Senate voting record regarding veterans issues, remarking he had voted against increasing vets health funding four years in a row. Ignoring the veteran’s point, McCain testily — and repeatedly — insisted that he had “received every award from every major veteran’s organization in America”:

MCCAIN: I’ve received every award from every major veteran’s organization in America. I received every organization in America their awards. … The reason why I have a perfect voting record from organizations like the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion and all the other veterans service organizations is because of my support of them. [...]

VETERAN: You do not have a perfect voting record by the DAV and the VFW. That’s where these votes were recorded. These votes were proposals by your colleagues in the Senate to increase health care of the VA in 2003, 4, 5, and 6 for troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. And you voted against those proposals. [...]

MCCAIN: I’ve been endorsed in every election by every veterans organization that do that, I’ve been supported by them, and I’ve received their highest awards from all of those organizations. So I guess they don’t know something you know.

Watch the video, via AHiddenSaint:

McCain has made the exact same claim before — and it is just a false today as it was then. As ThinkProgress documented, McCain’s so-called “perfect” record has been roundly criticized by prominent veterans groups: He received a grade of D from the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and a 20 percent vote rating from the Disabled Veterans of America; Vietnam Veterans of America noted McCain had “voted against us” in 15 “key votes.”

As for the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars — with whom McCain claims to have a “perfect voting record” — both groups vigorously supported Sen. Jim Webb’s (D-VA) GI Bill that McCain tirelessly opposed.

Later in the town hall, McCain admitted he does “not have a perfect voting record,” but then declared that questions about veterans issues were off limits: “I will be glad to debate a lot of things, but not that one,” McCain said.

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Yesterday, Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) presidential campaign released an economic plan promising that McCain will “balance the budget by the end of his first term.” But in a speech in Denver yesterday, McCain refused to mention his strict promise, instead just saying that he will “get government’s fiscal house in order.” On CSPAN’s Washington Journal today, Politico reporter Mike Allen said that the fact that McCain “didn’t actually say it in his speech” is an indication that he doesn’t want to be videotaped making the pledge:

HOST: Start with your story yesterday about Sen. John McCain’s speech in Denver, CO yesterday outlining his new economic plan. You wrote that he promised to balance the federal budget by the end of his first term.

ALLEN: He did, but Greta, what’s fascinating is he did it on the paper he put out on the 15 page book, the McCain Economic Plan, but he didn’t actually say it in his speech. So, he’s getting it both ways. The promise is out there for conservatives who might want to see it, but there’s no videotape of it to show later which might give you some indication of how likely Sen. McCain thinks it is that this will actually occur.

Watch it:

Perhaps McCain is trying to avoid making a “read my lips” pledge on video.

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On Sunday, the New York Times’ Bill Kristol devoted an entire column to proclaim his prediction that conservative strategist Mike Murphy would be joining the McCain campaign. “I expect that in the next couple of weeks we’ll learn that Murphy is coming on board as chief strategist,” he said. Today, Murphy announced he would not be joining the campaign:

“I do not expect to join the campaign,” Murphy said. “They’re my friends, and I wish them well.”

“No one discussed or offered Mike the strategist’s job,” a McCain advisor said yesterday. So much for the “Kristol Ball“:

The New York Times has been forced to clean up Kristol’s factual errors three times in just six months.

This morning, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) appeared on MSNBC and blasted Congress for being lazy. He said that instead of taking a Fourth of July recess, senators should have stuck around and passed a housing bill:

McCAIN: 80-some percent of the American people think the country’s on the wrong track. Approval ratings of Congress — I saw one poll, 12 percent, the lowest in 40 years they’ve been taking these polls.

And meanwhile, what’s the answer? Go out on a Fourth of July recess without passing a housing bill.

I mean, look, Americans are fed up, and I understand it.

Watch it:

McCain’s criticisms don’t hit very hard, considering he hasn’t been present for any of the six votes on the housing bill (HR 3221) in the past month. In fact, he hasn’t actually voted on anything in the Senate since April 8. McCain now ranks as the #1 most absent senator of the 110th Congress, having missed 61.8 percent of the votes. He even beats Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD), who took several months off while recovering from a brain hemorrhage. Important votes missed include the economic stimulus package and “at least seven votes of prominence on Iraq.”

Ironically, McCain also loves recesses. As Politico recently reported, McCain has taken a break from campaigning nearly every Saturday and Sunday for the past 20 weeks. The time is usually spent “with family, friends and campaign advisers” at one of his two residences or one of his two vacation homes.

As Ian Fried at the Seminal writes, “[I]f McCain thinks that the Housing Reform bill is that important, then instead of travelling to Colombia and Mexico this week, he should have gone to Washington and helped negotiate the bill.”

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Huffington Post reports that more than 120 videos of controversial pastor John Hagee have been removed from YouTube at the request of his lawyers. The move comes just a week before Hagee’s Christians United for Israel conference meets in Washington — where Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) is scheduled to speak. Hagee’s lawyers gave no explanation for why so many were removed, or why others were permitted to remain on YouTube.