Straight talk

A nickel for anyone who can make sense of this verbal scribble:

“No, I was thinking about- it’s not hard to- we will not,” [John] McCain stumbled. “By eliminating our dependency on foreign oil, we will not have to have our national security threatened by a cut off of that oil. Because we will be dependent, because we won’t be dependent, we will no longer be dependent on foreign oil. That’s what my remarks were.”

Funny story: McCain was trying to explain away comments he made Friday about the connection between oil and our war in the Middle East.

“My friends I will have an energy policy that we will be talking about, which will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East that will – that will then prevent us – that will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East.”

So we ARE in Iraq over oil! OK, we already knew that, but I guess that kind of talk is just a little too straight for a Republican presidential candidate.

I, for one, do not relish the idea of at least four more years of marble-mouthed imbecility from the White House.

When people say McCain is nothing but a third Bush term, I thought they just meant that McCain would continue Bush’s disastrous, tried-and-failed policies. But apparently it also means that we would be burdened with another chief executive who can’t explain his own comments and can’t form a sentence that isn’t written on a script.

Why would McCain, or any candidate who wants to even sniff a chance to win an election, make himself out to be a carbon copy of the most unpopular president in American history, whose every policy has been a complete disaster? Because McCain is not responsive to the will of the American people. McCain doesn’t support, and will not enact, policies that the majority of Americans support. He supports policies that further the interests of the monied minority behind the scenes, who stand to gain from policies like tax breaks for the wealthy, pre-emptive war for oil, for-profit healthcare, telecom immunity and a weakened OSHA, FDA, EPA and CPSC that are harmful to most Americans and to the country.

But hey, if you like government by corporations, of corporations and for corporations, by all means cast your ballot for John McSame, because the status quo is just great.

UPDATE: McSame, indeed.

John McCain’s senior campaign staff and President Bush’s senior White House staff are so close that the McCain folks let the Bush folks know in advance whenever McCain is about to distance himself from the unpopular president, says a top McCain aide.