May 2008 News History Archives

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May 30, 2008 News URL: #May-30-2008-News
20080530 Friday

- Barack Obama - John McCain - Accounting - People - Families - US - Iraq - Military - Book - MT - Arizona - Wisconsin - 2008 Election
"Obama slams McCain on Iraq facts." ... "[2008 Election Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack] Obama isn't expected to speak until 7:45 pm ET at a rally in Great Falls, MT [Montana]. But his campaign has released excerpts of his remarks, which go right after [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate John] McCain's "pre-surge levels" misstatement yesterday. They also invoke Scott McClellan's new book." ... "[Barack Obama:] "There are honest differences about how to move forward in Iraq, just like there were honest differences about whether or not we should go to war," Obama is supposed to say. "John McCain was for the invasion of Iraq; I opposed it. John McCain wants to continue George Bush’s war in Iraq indefinitely; I want to end it. So there’s going to be a clear choice for the American people this November."" ... ""But that’s not what John McCain’s been talking about the last few days. He’s been proposing a joint trip to Iraq that’s nothing more than a political stunt. He’s even been using it to raise a few dollars for his campaign. But it seems like [Arizona Senator] Sen. McCain’s a lot more interested in my travel plans than the facts, because yesterday – in his continued effort to put the best light on a failed policy – he stood up in Wisconsin and said, 'We have drawn down to pre-surge levels' in Iraq."" ... ""That’s not true, and anyone running for commander-in-chief should know better. As the saying goes, you’re entitled to your own view, but not your own facts. We’ve got around 150,000 troops in Iraq -- 20,000 more than we had before the surge. We have plans to get down to around 140,000 later this summer -- that’s still more troops than we had in Iraq before the surge. And today, Sen. McCain refused to correct his mistake. Just like George Bush, when he was presented with the truth, he just dug in and refused to admit his mistake. His campaign said it amounts to 'nitpicking.'"" ... ""Well, I don’t think tens of thousands of American troops amounts to nitpicking. Tell that to the young men and women who are serving bravely and brilliantly under our flag. Tell that to the families who have seen their loved ones fight tour after tour after tour of duty in a war that should’ve never been authorized and never been waged."" ... ""It’s time for a debate that’s based on the truth, and I can’t think of anything more important than how many Americans are in harm’s way. It’s time for a debate that’s based on how we’re going to end this war -- not a debate that’s based on raising a few dollars for John McCain’s campaign."" ... ""The American people have had enough spin. Just this week, we were reminded by President Bush’s own former spokesman of how it was deception -- not straight talk -- that misled the American people into war. It’s time to cut through the tough talk so that we can be straight with the American people about a war that’s cost us thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars without making us safer. It’s time to end the political game-playing so that we can finally end this war. That’s what I’ll do in this campaign. And that’s what I’ll do when I’m President of the United States."" -From Mark Murray and Athena Jones -MSNBC

- Scott McClellan - Books - Counterterrorism - US - Iraq - Military - Intelligence - Politics - Marketing
"Scott McClellan Apologizes for Bashing Richard Clarke." ... "In an encounter last night in the lobby of a New York hotel, former [Republican President Bush] White House press secretary Scott McClellan apologized for denouncing a former White House colleague, Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism adviser, after Clarke wrote a book ["Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror"] highly critical of the Bush administration in 2004." ... "Now McClellan is facing a similar denunciation from the White House for his own highly critical book." ... "In 2004, McClellan said Clarke's book, asserting the Bush administration failed to take timely action against al Qaeda, was "flat-out wrong." He told reporters at a March 22, 2004 briefing, "Ask yourself why, one and a half years later, after he left the administration, he's all of a sudden, coming forward with these grave concerns? If he had such grave concerns, why didn't he come out with them sooner?"" ... "Now White House aides are saying much the same thing about McClellan's assertions, in his book "What Happened," that President Bush waged a deceitful propaganda campaign to promote the war in Iraq. " ... "Clarke appeared Thursday night on "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" to talk about his new book, "Your Government Failed You," and was asked about McClellan's criticism of him in 2004. "I think there is a box in the White House that, if anyone escapes and tells the truth, they break open for talking points about what to say," Clarke told Stewart." (1, 2) -By Brian Ross with contributions by Mark Mooney -ABCNEWS.com

- John McCain - Jon Kyl - 2008 Election - Arizona - Massachusetts - US - Iraq - Military - Terrorism - Politics
"In An Iraq-Related Hole, McCain Keeps On Digging." ... "Both the [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate and Arizona] Senator [John McCain] and his aides sought to brush away his factually inaccurate statement that American troops in Iraq were down to pre-surge levels." ... "Reminded that troops in Iraq currently number 155,000, well above the pre-surge level of 130,000, McCain refused to acknowledge on Friday that he had misspoke." ... ""I said we had drawn down," the Senator declared during a press conference ([]watch video). "I said we have drawn down and we have drawn down three of the five brigades. We have drawn down three of the five brigades. We have drawn down the marines. The rest will be home the end of July. That's just facts, the facts as I stated them."" ... "But that isn't what he stated. On Thursday, in fact, he made a very specific measurement as to the extent of troop reductions." ... ""I can tell you that it [the mission in Iraq] is succeeding," said McCain. "I can look you in the eye and tell you it's succeeding. We have drawn down to pre-surge levels."" ... "And that was just the beginning. McCain's gaffe had already been exacerbated during a conference call earlier in the day, when aides to the Arizona Republican insisted that he had not misspoke, even while McCain surrogate [Arizona Republican Senator] Sen. Jon Kyl acknowledged on the same call that he had: "What he said was not entirely accurate. OK. So what?"" ... "During the same Thursday conference when he [McCain] misstated troop levels, he also argued that conditions were "quiet" in Mosul [Iraq]. That same day, three suicide bombers killed 30 in the city." ... ""It is very disturbing to have John McCain continue to raise questions about what he knows and what he bases his judgments on," [Massachusetts Democratic Senator] Sen. John Kerry said. "If you don't know the number of troops, it is difficult to make a judgment as to whether they are overextended. ... It raises serious questions about his comprehension of this challenge."" -By Sam Stein -HuffingtonPost.com

- John McCain - Randy Scheunemann - Political - Semantics - People - Accounting - US - Iraq - Military - Terrorism - 2008 Election
"McCain, the Surge, and 'verb tenses'." ... "[2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] John McCain got ahead of events this week in claiming that the United States military has gone down to "pre-surge levels" in Iraq. That will not happen until later this year, even by the most optimistic scenario. He is also wrong about the city of Mosul [Iraq] being "quiet", unless you exclude car bombs and other mayhem. His advisers attempted to spin his remarks as a simple matter of "verb tense." But there is a big difference between "Mission Accomplished" and "We expect the mission to be accomplished soon."" ... "The Facts:" ... "The McCain campaign organized a rapid-response conference call with reporters in an attempt to limit the fallout from the senator's erroneous claim that "we have drawn down to pre-surge levels" in Iraq. The Obama folks pointed out that there are at present around 155,000 troops in Iraq, compared to a January 2007 force level of 128,569. The Pentagon is planning to get down to 140,000 by the end of July." ... "In a conference call with reporters, McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann said the issue was a "question of semantics," and that McCain would have been right if he had said that the Pentagon had "taken a decision" to draw down the troops or was in the process of drawing them down." ... "But verb tenses matter, particularly in the case of Iraq, where it is very difficult to predict what is going to happen next week, let alone next month. By the Scheunemann standard of linguistic analysis, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the Bush administration's claim of "Mission Accomplished" back in May 2003. As we now know, a few things happened after that date to make the claim somewhat premature." ... "Taking a decision to do something and actually implementing it are two very different matters. To claim the contrary reminds me of the motto from the Ministry of Information in George Orwell's 1984: "He who controls the past controls the future; and he who controls the present controls the past."" ... "Similarly Orwellian is McCain's claim that all is "quiet" in the northern Iraqi town of Mosul, despite two car bomb attacks yesterday in the Mosul area that killed at least 20 people. News reports depict the town as the "last urban bastion of al-Qaeda" in Iraq. In the conference call, Scheunemann acknowledged that al Qaeda was still active in the area." [The Washington Post gives McCain's accounting numbers three Pinochio's out of a possible four, calling the statements by Candidate McCain "Significant factual error[s] and/or obvious contradictions."] -By Michael Dobbs with contributions by Alice Crites -WashingtonPost

- John McCain - 2008 Election - Wisconsin - Arizona - US - Iraq - Military - Terrorism
"McCain Declares Mosul "Quiet" On Same Day As Three Suicide Attacks (Video)." ... "Speaking about Iraq at a townhall event on Thursday evening in Greensdale, Wisconsin, [2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate and Arizona Senator] Sen. John McCain declared, "I can tell you that it is succeeding. I can look you in the eye and tell you it's succeeding. We have drawn down to pre-surge levels. Basra, Mosul and now Sadr city are quiet and it's long and it's hard and it's tough and there will be setbacks..."" ... "McCain was wrong on two points. First, U.S. [United States] forces have not returned to pre-surge levels. Before the surge, there were 130,000 troops in Iraq; even if the scheduled troop reductions are carried out as planned, there will still be 140,000 troops in Iraq in August." ... "Moreover, McCain's claim that Mosul [Iraq] is "quiet" was disproved earlier today in grim fashion. Three suicide bombings -- two in Mosul and another in a surrounding town -- left 30 Iraqis dead and more than two dozen injured, according to press_reports. " -By Nico Pitney -HuffingtonPost.com

- Jim Gibbons - Nevada - Homes - Business - Health - Military - Investigation - Politics
"With the dirt flying, party backing away: GOP [GOP=Grand Old Party=Republican] support for [Nevada Republican Governor] Gov. Jim Gibbons erodes after wife’s allegations revealed in filing." ... "Republicans say serious discussions are taking place around the state among political and business leaders about how to extricate the party from the increasingly messy divorce proceeding between Dawn and Jim Gibbons. They say Jim Gibbons has handled the matter poorly by attempting to evict the first lady from the mansion and not settling the matter quickly and quietly." ... "The governor’s short but eventful tenure has been marked by unforeseen challenges, as well as problems of his own making. His political appointments have drawn fire and he has been politically tone-deaf to severe problems facing the state, including the [home] foreclosure crisis and Southern Nevadans’ deteriorating confidence in the health care system following a hepatitis C outbreak at a well-known medical clinic. An FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] investigation of his relationship with a defense contractor remains unresolved." ... "The [divorce] filing comes after an editorial in the Elko Daily Press alleged that Gibbons was having an affair with an unidentified woman." ... "The court documents do not name Gibbons’ alleged mistress, calling her a frequent “bar, lunch, dinner, and even grocery store companion” with a “striking resemblance” to Chrissy Mazzeo, the woman who accused then-Congressman Gibbons in 2006 of getting drunk and making a pass at her in a Las Vegas [Nevada] parking garage during the final weeks of his race for governor." -By J. Patrick Coolican and David McGrath Schwartz -LasVegasSun.com

- John McCain - Rod Parsley - John Hagee - Military - Terrorism - Religion - Politicians - Homosexuals - Racism - Television - Media - Ohio - Texas - 2008 Election
"In Rebuking Minister, McCain May Have Alienated Evangelicals." ... "The [Republican televangelist, Reverend] Rev. Rod Parsley paces the stage, wiping his forehead and shouting to his congregation in a taped sermon that marriage is under attack by "tortured and angry homosexuals."" ... "During another of his nationally broadcast television shows, he compares Planned Parenthood to the Ku Klux Klan, saying that its goal is to "eliminate" blacks. And at another service at his 12,000-member World Harvest Church in Columbus, Ohio, he punches the air and calls Islam a "false religion" that God has told America to destroy." ... ""We were built for battle! We were created for conflict! We get off on warfare!" he adds." ... "Images of one of the nation's rising stars of television evangelism are widely available on DVDs and Web sites, with sermons that are almost certain to inflame some segment of the voting public. But in its quest to secure support from evangelical Christians, the campaign of presumptive [2008 Election] Republican presidential nominee John McCain did not note a long record of inflammatory statements by Parsley and the [Republican televangelist, Reverend] Rev. John Hagee of Texas, another TV evangelist, until long after McCain had accepted their endorsements." ... "The move backfired last week when clips of the ministers' sermons gained national attention, prompting McCain to reject their support. The candidate's abrupt turnabout brought criticism not only from secular viewers, who questioned why he had aligned himself with controversial religious voices, but also from evangelicals, who said he may have alienated a powerful bloc of potential Republican voters." ... "In February, McCain appeared with Parsley to accept his endorsement and called him a "spiritual guide."" ... "He [Parsley] and his family reside in a 7,462-square-foot house, valued at more than $1 million, on a 24-acre gated property." ... "In 2005, Parsley created a voter registration organization called Reformation Ohio, telling Christians that it was time to "lock and load" and to prepare for a "Holy Ghost invasion" of government." (1, 2) -By Kimberly Kindy with contributions by Alice Critics, Meg Smith, and Madonna Lebling -WashingtonPost

McCain Parsley McCain's "Spiritual Guide" Rod Parsley "We get off on warfare!"

- Scott McClellan - Book - Noteworthy - US - Iraq - Corporate - Media - Military - Government - Politics - Marketing - Television - History - Gore - Obama - McCain - Russert - Cheney
"Scott McClellan on the "liberal media"." ... "In a minimally rational world, this extraordinary passage, from the new book by Scott McClellan, would forever slay the single most ludicrous myth in our political culture: The "Liberal Media":"

"If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the [Republican President Bush] White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq."

"The collapse of the administration's rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. . . . In this case, the "liberal media" didn't live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served."

"I like [Bush]. Everybody sort of likes the president, except for the real whack-jobs, maybe on the left -- I mean -- like him personally."

- John McCain - Rick Renzi - Jon Kyl - Money - Politics - Federal - Investigation - Phoenix - Arizona - Real Estate - Land - Legislation - Nevada
"FBI interviews Arizona staffers." ... "Federal agents interviewed staffers for likely [2008 Election] Republican presidential nominee [and Arizona Senator] Sen. John McCain (Ariz. [Arizona]) as part of their corruption case against [Arizona Republican Representative] Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.[Republican-Arizona])." ... "[United States] U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona Diane J. Humetewa and fellow prosecutors disclosed the interviews with aides for McCain and fellow Arizona Republican [Senator] Sen. Jon Kyl in a written response to Renzi’s attorneys, who asked for the contents of the interview to help prepare for Renzi’s upcoming trial, which is scheduled for October [2008]." ... "The aides were interviewed about land exchanges, according to an April letter from Humetewa filed with the U.S. District Court of Arizona late last week." ... "A federal land swap critical to developing a $3 billion copper mine southeast of Phoenix [Arizona] is at the heart of the case against Renzi, who is facing 35 public corruption charges, including conspiracy, money-laundering, extortion and insurance fraud." ... "Renzi is alleged to have told executives for Resolution Copper Mining that he would not support a land deal the mining company was interested in unless they bought his former business partner’s property as part of the deal, according to the [February] Feb. 22 federal indictment." ... "Under the deal, 5,000 acres of non-federal land owned by Resolution Copper were to be exchanged for 3,025 acres of federal land. The federal land sits on a large copper deposit, and the exchange would have allowed mining on land for the first time since a 1954 executive order by [Republican] then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower." ... "Renzi allegedly wanted land owned by a business partner who owed Renzi money to be included in the deal. If the land had been included, prosecutors charge, it would have allowed the business partner to pay a debt to Renzi." ... "Resolution Copper refused to cooperate, but another company, Preserved Petrified Forest Land Investors LLC [Limited Liability Company] of Las Vegas [Nevada], agreed to buy the land. Prosecutors allege this netted Renzi more than $700,000." ... "Renzi twice introduced a land swap bill, in 2005 and 2006, before taking his name off of the measure after the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] raided his family business in April 2007. [Arizona Democratic Representiave] Rep. Ed Pastor (D-Ariz.[Democratic-Arizona]) then introduced the legislation on [August] Aug. 1, 2007, along with Arizona [Republican Representatives] Reps. Jeff Flake and John Shadegg, both Republicans, and Democrat[ic Representative] Harry Mitchell (D[Democratic])." ... "Sens. McCain and Kyl introduced companion legislation in the Senate, most recently in July 2007. " (1, 2) -By Susan Crabtree -TheHill.com

- Obama - McCain - Money - Housing - Working - People - Families - Arizona - Nevada - 2008 Election
"Obama Hits McCain on Closed Door Meeting with Bush." ... "[2008 Election Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama on Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain:] "Today, John McCain is having a different kind of meeting. He's holding a fundraiser with George Bush behind closed doors in Arizona. No cameras. No reporters," Obama said before a town hall in Las Vegas [Nevada], "And we all know why. Senator McCain doesn't want to be seen, hat-in-hand, with the President whose failed policies he promises to continue for another four years. But the question for the American people is: do we want to continue George Bush's policies?"" ... "Watch the VIDEO HERE." ... ""I don't think the American people want to continue the disastrous economic policies that have helped create catastrophes like the housing crisis that we're here to discuss today," Obama continued, "On issue after issue, John McCain is offering more of the same policies that have failed for the last eight years. That's the agenda that he and the President are raising money to support later today. But I'm here in Nevada because we know it’s time to turn the page."" ... "Obama referenced an economic address that [Arizona] Senator McCain gave last week, characterizing his comments as out of touch with working people, "Senator McCain is so out of touch with the struggles of working people that he gave a speech laying out his economic agenda last week, and he couldn't even be bothered to talk about the foreclosure crisis that has put so many families on the brink of financial catastrophe, and put our economy on the brink—or in—recession."" -From Sunlen Miller -ABCNEWS.com

- Barack Obama - History - Author - Foreign - Military - Terrorism - Torture - Guantanamo - Cuba - Iraq - US - 2008 Election
"Fukuyama backs Obama for US presidency." ... "He is one of America's most famous neo-conservatives and his ideas on the spread of democracy have informed the [Republican President] Bush administration's foreign policy." ... "But Francis Fukuyama, the author of The End of History and Professor of International Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University, is now a sharp critic of US President George W Bush and has even come out as a supporter of [2008 Election] Democrat frontrunner Barack Obama for president." ... "ELEANOR HALL: So what advice do you have for the next president of the United States on foreign policy?" ... "FRANCIS FUKUYAMA: I think that the US as a result of Iraq has really alienated itself from a good deal of the global public. Not just people in the Middle East where anti-Americanism is at an all-time high but from its European allies, from a lot of publics in places where there ought to be a lot of sympathy." ... "So I think the United States needs to reconnect with the world. It needs to do some symbolic things like, we shouldn't torture people, so as a first symbolic gesture I think the new president ought to close Guantanamo [Cuba] and I think in general what you need is a shift." ... "There needs to be great downplaying of the whole war on terrorism. To call it a war I think has over-militarised our objectives and the means that we have used to prosecute it, and I think there has to be a greater shift to the use of soft power in projecting American influence and then there are large areas of the world where we have kind of neglected thinking about things like east Asia where you have obviously got some very big changes going off. " -By Eleanor Hall -Yahoo

- John McCain - Rick Davis - Criminal - Government - Money - Politics - Foreign - Military - Satellite - Imagery - Technology - Israel - Ukraine - Russia - Switzerland - Arizona - US - 2008 Election
"Lobbying labyrinth in McCain camp." ... "Rick Davis, the manager of [Arizona Republican] Senator John McCain's [2008 Election] presidential campaign, is a typical Washington insider in many ways, having long worked as both a lobbyist and a political operative along the intersection of politics, policy and money." ... "Take Davis's involvement with one of his lesser-known lobbying clients, an Israeli company, Imagesat, which sells satellite imagery. Along with lobbying for it, Davis became a consultant to a private investment firm that had a financial stake in it. That connection opened the door for him to get in on the ground floor of other investments made by the firm, Pegasus Capital Advisors." ... "... Davis's business partner, Paul Manafort [of the Davis Manafort lobbying firm], has met with the United States ambassador in Ukrain    e, a time when he was advising Viktor Yanukovich, that country's onetime prime minister, a State Department official said. Yanukovich's party was opposed by both the [Republican President] Bush administration and McCain because it was closely tied to Vladimir Putin [Russia's former President]." ... "Davis Manafort received $120,000 from late 2004 to mid-2005 to lobby for Imagesat on both defense and domestic security issues. Davis and Christian Ferry, now McCain's deputy campaign manager, were the two lobbyists on the project, the records show." ... "Along with his work as a lobbyist, Davis at the time was also drawing a salary as the part-time president of the Reform Institute, a Washington group that McCain helped found to reduce "the influence of special interests" in politics and government." ... "In November 2005, Pegasus bought a stake in a company called Traxys, which trades in industrial metals." ... "In January 2006, just two months later, the subject of metals trading came up in association with a social meeting Davis helped arrange near Davos, Switzerland. At that meeting, first reported by The Washington Post, McCain met the Russian aluminum magnate, Oleg Deripaska, who has been barred from entering the United States apparently because of alleged criminal ties." (1, 2) -By Barry Meier with contributions by Kate Zernike and Andrew E. Kramer -NYTimes via -IHT.com

- Obama - McCain - Money - Politics - Legislation - Veterans - 2008 Election
"Obama criticizes McCain on veterans' benefits." ... "[2008 Election Democratic Presidential Candidate] Barack Obama told veterans Saturday that he can't understand why Republican [2008 Election Presidential Candidate] John McCain opposes legislation that would provide college scholarships to people who have served in the U.S. [United States] military." ... ""Now, let me be clear: No one can dispute John McCain's love for this country or his concern for veterans. But here's what I don't understand. I don't understand why John McCain would side with [Republican President] George Bush and oppose our plan to make college more affordable for our veterans," the Democratic presidential candidate said. "George Bush and John McCain may think our plan is too generous. I could not disagree more."" -AP via -MSNBC

- John McCain - Media - Politics - Arizona - 2008 Election
"Tight Control on Files and Shortened Question Period." ... "[2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate and Arizona] Senator John McCain released his medical records on Friday under tightly controlled circumstances, allowing them to be reviewed by a small group of reporters from news organizations that his campaign chose." ... "From 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. Pacific time, about 20 reporters were permitted to view more than 1,000 pages of records in a room at a resort near the Mayo Clinic Scottsdale in Arizona. The reporters had three hours to review and take notes on the documents, from 2000 to 2008. They were not permitted to remove the documents from the room or photocopy them." ... "At 11 a.m., Mr. McCain’s doctors made themselves available in what was scheduled as a 90-minute conference call. But the questions were stopped after 45 minutes." -By Elisabeth Bumiller and Lawrence K. Altman -NYTimes

- John McCain - Barack Obama - Joseph Lieberman - Lindsey Graham - Finance - Laws - 2008 Election - Ad - Iraq - War - US - Connecticut - South Carolina - Arizona
"McCain advisers on '527' attacking Obama." ... "Both [2008 Election Presidential Candidates] John McCain and Barack Obama say they want to rein in the power of the so-called "527s," the independent political committees that skirt the campaign finance laws with unlimited financing and unregulated campaign attacks." ... "But two of [Republican] McCain's own campaign chairmen are serving on the board of an independent organization behind a new attack ad against [Democratic] Obama, "an apparent violation of the Arizona Republican's new conflict of interest policy,'' the Huffington Post notes." ... ""Sens. [Connecticut Independent Senator] Joseph Lieberman and [South Carolina Republican Senator] Lindsey Graham both hold chairs for the McCain camp as well as positions on the board of advisers of Vets for Freedom, an advocacy group that supports the Iraq war,'' the HuffPost reports. "A week ago these titles may not have been a political issue. But under McCain's newly-implemented ethics policy, Lieberman and Graham's role with Vets for Freedom is now proving problematic." -By Mark Silva -Sun-Sentinel.com

- John McCain - US_Debt - Money - Politics - Legislator - Military - Families - Housing - Construction - Iraq - Israel - Egypt - Jordan - Arizona - US - 2008 Election - Noteworthy
"McCain's Fantasy War on Earmarks." ... "[2008 Election Republican Presidential Candidate] John McCain boasts that he can save $100 billion a year "immediately" by eliminating the so-called earmarks that legislators attach to spending bills to finance pet projects, usually in their home state. But he has refused to say exactly which projects he would cut, and his estimates of the amount of money that is being spent on earmarks have been challenged by independent experts." ... "The Facts:" ... "The Arizona senator is promising to balance the budget by the end of his first term, while simultaneously extending the [Republican] George W. Bush tax cuts, introducing billions of dollars of new tax cuts of his own, and remaining in Iraq as long as is necessary to stabilize that country. Asked how this miracle will be accomplished, McCain told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News This Week on April 20 that he could come up with $100 billion "tomorrow" by vetoing pork-barrel spending bills." ... "There are a number of problems with this magical budgetary balancing act. First of all, the suspiciously round $100 billion figure is largely a figment of the McCain campaign's imagination. I have not been able to find a single independent budget expert to vouch for it. McCain's economics adviser, Doug Holtz-Eakin, will not say how the campaign arrived at the figure, other than that it is an extrapolation from various studies, including a 2006 study by the Congressional Research Service available here [PDF]." ... "However, much of this money is tied to items such as foreign aid to countries like Israel, Egypt, and Jordan, that McCain says he will not touch." ... "By most definitions of the term, the amount of money spent on earmarks is much lower than the CRS study. The Office for Management and the Budget came up with a figure for $16.9 billion in the 2008 appropriation bills. Taxpayers for Commonsense, an independent watchdog group that focuses on wasteful spending, identified $18.3 billion worth of earmarks in the 2008 bills, a 23 per cent cut from a record $23.6 billion set in 2005 [when Republicans controlled Congress]." ... "The figure includes such items as $4 billion for the [United States] U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which could not be eliminated without halting hundreds of construction projects around the country. Another big chunk goes to military construction, including housing for servicemen and their families, which McCain has also promised not to touch." ... "McCain's talk about eliminating $100 billion a year in earmarks is largely fantasy." ... "To use a phrase coined by [Republican] George H.W. Bush, this is "voodoo economics," based more on wishful thinking than on hard data or carefully considered policy proposals." [The Washington Post gives McCain's accounting numbers four Pinochio's out of a possible four, calling the statements by Candidate McCain "Whoppers."] -WashingtonPost

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