Not his week

Nothing like a 400,000 gallon oil spill and the smell of diesel in the air to help sell a “safe drilling“ message, eh John?

Thursday, workers on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast will see clear skies, mild temperatures in the 80's and 90's, and feel only a slight breeze. However, John McCain's campaign says inclement weather caused the cancellation of his appearance there, aimed at promoting offshore drilling.

Perhaps a more likely cause is the 400,000 plus gallons of oil floating through the Mississippi, spilled yesterday after a barge collided with a tanker at New Orleans. As for inclement weather, at the time McCain would have been taking center-stage on the oil rig, Hurricane Dolly, a Category 2 storm, was making landfall at the Texas-Mexico border about 600 miles away.

[...]

The spill caused authorities to close about 29 miles of the river, from New Orleans straight through the Gulf of Mexico, reports the Times-Picayune. No sooner than the announcement of the spill, McCain's campaign announced the cancellation of the candidate's visit to the rig, citing 'weather.'

This week also saw John McCain credit “the surge” with causing the Anbar Awakening, an event that happened 10 months before the surge, and then compunding the mistake by trying to redefine his terms and obfuscate at a press conference in the cheese aisle of a Bethlehem, Pa., supermarket.



Then, while Barack Obama gave an inspiring speech before 200,000 Germans cheering and waving American flags at the Victory Column in Berlin, McCain enjoyed German brats at Schmidt's Sausage Haus und Restaurant in Columbus, Ohio.

When was the last time you saw a crowd of foreigners waving American flags?

But maybe I’m making too much of all this. You decide which is the more powerful image.



UPDATE: The Daily Show’s take.



Note that the Faux News video (starting at 3:28 into the clip), marked “yesterday” in the top left corner of the screen, features a McCain campaign sign from 2000 (3:31). Not that Faux News is trying to make McCain look about a decade younger or anything. It would never take such liberties with the truth or deliberately try to improve the image of a particular candidate, right?

And what’s all this shit about the media’s love affair with Obama? I thought the media were McCain’s base.

Must be time for another barbecue.