Bad Deeds for 5-21-2008

Pastor Who Endorsed McCain Said Hitler Was Fulfilling God’s Will – John Hagee, the controversial evangelical leader and endorser of Sen. John McCain, argued in a late 1990s sermon that the Nazis had operated on God’s behalf to chase the Jews from Europe and shepherd them to Palestine. According to the Reverend, Adolph Hitler was a “hunter,” sent by God, who was tasked with expediting God’s will of having the Jews re-establish a state of Israel.

McCain’s Top Foreign Policy Adviser Lobbied His Staff on While He Was Working For McCain’s Campaign – John McCain’s top foreign policy adviser lobbied the Arizona senator’s staff on behalf of the republic of Georgia while he was working for the campaign, public records show. Randy Scheunemann, founder of Orion Strategies, represented the governments of Macedonia, Georgia and Taiwan between 2003 and March 1, according to the firm’s filings with the Justice Department. In its latest semiannual report, the firm disclosed that Scheunemann had a phone conversation in November about Georgia with Richard Fontaine, an aide in McCain’s Senate office. Orion Strategies earned $540,000 from its foreign clients over the year ending on Dec. 1, reports show. Scheunemann also received $56,250 last year from March to July from McCain, according to campaign finance records.

McCain’s Latest Economic Plan Seen as Incoherent by Economists on Both Sides – Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the conservative Cato Institute, told The Huffington Post that McCain has thus far failed to give the public “straight talk” on the connection between his spending agenda and tax cutting plan. Liberal economists who support the idea of job training assistance also wonder how McCain can achieve that objective, given McCain’s tax cut priorities. Len Burman, a senior fellow and tax policy analyst with the Urban Institute, called McCain’s Monday speech “interesting,” but cautioned: “His proposed tax cuts will either make it very difficult for the government to help vulnerable populations — including many more than those displaced by trade — or add to our ballooning budget deficits.”

Republican Consultant Defends Describing Some Women as Bitches – On May 20th, as a part of CNN’s primary night panel, Republican consultant Alex Castellanos took issue with Jeffery Toobin, who decried a recent newspaper column that referred to Clinton as a “white bitch.” The thoroughly refined and scintillatingly relevant counterpoint that Castellanos interrupted Toobin to make – attached to an assertion that Toobin was “dead wrong” by the way – was that, “Some women, by the way, are named that, and it’s accurate.” Clinton was apparently one such woman, because she is “abrasive, aggressive [and] irritating.”

Regards,

Jim