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John “Truthiness” McCain’s evening in Mississippi

September 26th, 2008 · 1 Comment

There are going to be millions of words already and coming out about the debate in Ole Miss. Thus, to add a few into the pile. Whether captured or not, the facts will show that John “Truthiness” McCain showed up in force this evening. We could discuss Senator McCain’s failure to fight for funding veterans’ programs in the past few years. We could discuss the mixed reality of Senator McCain’s efforts regarding torture. We could discuss, well, many issues. But, let us take a moment to look at one arena: renewable energy.

The Republican nominee for President, John McCain, suggested some great level of support for renewable energy amid the debate, calling out wind power and solar energy. (Mea culpa … no transcript for me yet and the notes aren’t tight.) This fits within the McCain truthiness, using wind-turbines in ads, that John McCain is some form of great supporting of green energy.

The truth … the truth from John McCain is often great words when it comes to renewable power. Let us be clear, if John McCain had simply shown up, done his job as a Senator, and acting to support “green technologies” like he claims, we would have a far more robust renewable energy industry moving into 2009. On more than one occasion in the past year, bills to support renewable energy failed to pass the Senate by a vote of 59-40-1, with a requirement of 60 yes votes to pass. Who was the AWOL Senator? Senator John “Truthiness” McCain!

And, in reality, John McCain has a long record of not supporting renewable energies. At least 50 times, John McCain voted against renewable energy, against clean energy.

While John McCain likes to speak of the criticality of global warming, he chose a global warming denier as his Vice Presidential candidate.

While McCain ads have shown wind turbines, McCain-Palin have embraced “Burn, Baby, Burn” with a passion typically reserved for a lover.

My key impression from John McCain’s performance at Ole Miss: a level of truthiness that Stephen Colbert must envy.

Reviewing the debate, one of the most common phrases from Senator Obama might be “I agree” with something McCain said. Sigh. In fact, it would have been far better, and far more accurate, if Barack Obama had looked back to Ronald Reagan: “There you again” with a challenge to yet another effort by John “Truthiness” McCain to distort his own record into something more appealing to the American public.

Tags: 2008 presidential campaign · 2008 Presidential Election · Energy · Global Warming · john mccain · political symbols · politics · renewable energy

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