Big Oil Hearts McCain After Flip-Flop

My, my my. Look whose pockets are being emptied on McCain's behalf:

Campaign contributions from oil industry executives to Sen. John McCain rose dramatically in the last half of June, after the senator from Arizona made a high-profile split with environmentalists and reversed his opposition to the federal ban on offshore drilling.

Oil and gas industry executives and employees donated $1.1 million to McCain last month -- three-quarters of which came after his June 16 speech calling for an end to the ban -- compared with $116,000 in March, $283,000 in April and $208,000 in May.

Looks like someone's hoping to buy themselves a senator. $1.1 million's a pretty good return on a craven partisian policy reversal, wouldn't you say? Still not enough to buy a presidency, but give them time - they've got very deep pockets indeed, thanks to the fact they're making record profits as we scrounge in the couch for enough change to buy 1/200 of a tank of gas.


But the amount of money, though impressive, isn't the interesting thing here. The timing of McCain's big "let's drill everywhere, environment be damned!" speech is instructive:

McCain delivered the speech before heading to Texas for a series of fundraisers with energy industry executives, and the day after the speech he raised $1.3 million at a private luncheon and reception at the San Antonio Country Club, according to local news accounts.

"The timing was significant," said David Donnelly, the national campaigns director of the Public Campaign Action Fund, a nonpartisan campaign finance reform group that conducted the analysis of McCain's oil industry contributions. "This is a case study of how a candidate can change a policy position in the interest of raising money."

Indeed 'tis. And he's expert on changing position to please the people with the big bucks. Most politicians are. What makes McCain unique in that respect is how pliant he's become. He'll say anything to anyone, flipping and flopping like a suffocating salmon being electrocuted on a dock, often reversing himself more than once in a single week.


Do we really want such a bribable limp fish as our President?


Any takers? No?


I didn't think so.