President George W. Bush will join John McCain for a fundraiser in the Arizona senator’s hometown later this month, McCain’s campaign confirms. ….
…..Bush will raise money for McCain the following night in Salt Lake City, but McCain will not be present there.

McCain believes “that the next president doesn’t get to remake that decision” to go to war. We were right to be there, and he adds that we will remain there as long as our “adversaries in the region . . . extend their influence and undermine our security there.” “Our security there”—sounds like a battle cry for establishing our own garrison state, fulfilling George W. Bush’s wish for an American presence similar to what we have enjoyed for over 60 years in Korea. For Bush, the “Korea model,” as he called it, means a U.S. presence for stabilizing the Middle East. He clearly intends his successors to defend and continue his war, expanding his grandiose visions for the area—with, incidentally, no disruptions for our friends who supply us with oil. McCain is just what the president ordered.

The historical animosity between the Bush and McCain camps runs deep enough that it’s hard to imagine that his hugs have any personal content. And if he runs for president, the pantomime will face a more exacting audience. GOP loyalists who have been newly impressed by McCain’s support of Bush won’t tolerate his hopping around. If the senator wants to keep the Bush faithful happy, his base in the middle and the media will surely erode.

[Gene Karpinski, president of the League of Conservation Voters] and other environmentalists criticize McCain’s positions on renewable energy, livestock-grazing practices, timber sales and funding to conserve public lands, wildlife and oceans.

In his quarter-century in Congress, McCain has demonstrated a “pattern of voting with polluters and special interests instead of consumers and the planet,” said Carl Pope, executive director of the San Francisco-based Sierra Club.

McCain antagonized environmentalists by voting in 2006 to open 8 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico to oil drilling. In addition, they have clashed over McCain’s support for multibillion-dollar subsidies to the nuclear industry.

He was also criticized for backing conventional uses of coal while opposing requirements for electric utilities to get more of their power from renewable energy sources.

Separately, the Arizona senator has been taken to task for his support of President George W. Bush’s 2007 budget, which cut funding for conservation programs by more than $3 billion, or 10 percent.

[full article]

Today’s McCain Myth: John McCain offers new ideas instead of more of the same on the issues voters care most about: the economy, Iraq, and health care.

On the campaign trail, John McCain has tried to paint himself as an Independent “maverick” who has broken ranks with the Republican Party on a number of occasions. But his record reveals that on issue after issue, a vote for McCain is a vote for a continuation of the same failed Bush policies that have been disastrous for America.

• Third Bush Term on the Economy…
• Third Bush Term on Iraq…
• Third Bush Term on Health Care…
• Third Bush Term on Social Security…

[full article]

Based on his policies and the company he keeps, this year’s Republican presidential candidate sounds a lot like the guy who ran in 2000 and 2004.

The most important thing about the endorsements proffered to John McCain by George W. Bush and evangelist John Hagee last week was McCain’s reaction to them. The freshly minted Republican nominee for president, who has had harsh words in the past for both Bush’s policies and evangelical “agents of intolerance,” meekly accepted their support. He knows he cannot win in November if the evangelicals and pro-war conservatives stay home. How far will McCain go in presenting himself as Son of Bush in order to energize his party’s base? To date, based on his willingness to embrace the Bush agenda and to associate with religious extremists, the answer seems to be pretty far indeed.

[full article]