Further fallout from the story mentioned here the other day about John McCain and Internet regulation…

RedState is angry at a new bill the Senator John McCain is pushing. While the left and the right blogospheres disagree on almost anything, one thing that binds them together is a hatred of ill-informed internet regulation. McCain’s bill simply does not make sense from a small-blog owner’s perspective. RedState reports:

Through a vaguely written last-minute piece of legislation, scrawled on a napkin by a staffer who could’ve used an extra Red Bull, McCain would solve the problem of online child pornography by regulating the heck out of the internet in the form of massive fines for sites that allow any obscenity to slip through. The target area includes everything from message boards to MySpace to (if the smart lawyers who don’t work for McCain are right) Redstate and other membership-based blogs.

The more you dig out of this piece of legislation, the more frightening it becomes. Bloggers could be forced to pay fines for not regulating the amount of spam on their blog – any links that make it through the obscenity filters could spark regulation and punishment – and in addition, according to the smart folks at the Center for Democracy & Technology, any membership-based site that allowed a sexual predator to register could be subject to penalties:

There is absolutely nothing wrong with protecting children from predators. This bill, however, does nothing substantive to reduce that risk and poses a threat to small blogs and websites.

The real question here is whether McCain knows anything at all about the ramifications of the bill. In other words: Is McCain just senile, or is he blatantly malicious towards the internet?

In McCain’s latest email fundraising appeal, Campaign Manager Terry (racist crook) Nelson offers a John McCain lapel pin for only a $100 contribution. Gee whiz that’s swell!

John McCain remains steadfast in his commitment to a brand of leadership that promotes principle over politics, and now he needs a commitment from you. With your contribution this year of just $100 or more to support John McCain’s Presidential Exploratory Committee, you will be rushed an official John McCain Presidential Exploratory Committee lapel pin to identify yourself as a key McCain supporter.

The challenges facing our nation today demand solutions, and solutions require leadership. Show your friends, family and neighbors that John McCain is the leader we need in 2008.

Sure is pretty. Amazing what a few dollars can buy these days…

McCain News from around the web:

• Time magazine wonders if being the frontrunner this early in the race can hurt McCain and his outsider “maverick” image.
• C-Net, normally a non-political technology oriented website, castigates Senator McCain for his proposal regarding additional regulation on small website operators.
• Jim Geraghty of the National Review Online speculates in the New York Sun that if McCain were to win the nomination, he could pick Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty as his running mate.

To the tune of $50 million. The Phoenix Business Journal reports:

Arizona Sen. John McCain has launched a $50 million national fundraising and business outreach effort for his 2008 presidential bid and recently met with a group of two dozen leading Arizona chief executives and business chiefs.

McCain wants to raise $50 million nationally and $2.5 million in Arizona over the next couple of months, with a focus on gaining financial and political support from the business community.

The Phoenix-area meeting with McCain featured a select and very powerful group of Arizona business leaders and CEOs. Top executives from the airline industry, real estate, banking and professional sports sectors were at the invitation-only meeting with McCain. There were no formal invitations or publicity of the event, according to sources familiar with the meeting.

I wonder what sort of promises were made to the business community in exchange for the $50 million John McCain is looking to raise. Does this signal an end to the “straight talk express” and the start of the “back room largess”?

Via MyDD. From Washington Post’s “The Fix”:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) continues to recruit top GOP political operatives in expectation of a presidential run. According to a source close to the McCain operation, the candidate has lined up Terry Nelson to serve as campaign manager…

Does the name Terry Nelson sound familiar? Besides producing the racist anti Harold Ford “bimbo” ad, he was the key point of contact between Tom Delay and the RNC during the time of the TRMPAC scandal. In fact, MyDD reports that he was an indicted co-conspirator.

It is almost cliche at this point, but it appears the straight talk express has left the building.

From Talking Points Memo:

McCain has now become the latest hawk to pre-emptively attack the forthcoming proposals of the Iraq Study Group, which is reported to favor withdrawing troops from Iraq. McCain told conservative radio host Michael Smerconish that he’s sticking by his position that more troops need to be sent to Iraq, and rejected any notion of “compromise” that may be floated by the Baker-Hamilton group, elaborating as follows: “Well in war, my dear friends, there is no such thing as compromise; you either win or you lose.“

I would love to hear a detailed explanation from McCain of what exactly would constitute winning in Iraq. They have a government, they have had elections. What other benchmarks are you going to set? When do we tell the Iraqis that they need to stand on their own?

Seems that McCain can’t get his story straight regarding civil unions. Event though he supported the Arizona ban that would prevent both gay marriage and civil unions, he first told George Stephanopoulos that he wasn’t against civil unions. Then, he changed his mind:

Host George Stephanopoulos asked McCain why he supported the measure, saying it “actually denied any government benefits to civil unions or domestic partnerships. Are you against civil unions for gay couples?”

First McCain said: “No, I’m not.”

“I think that initiative did allow for people to join in legal agreements such as power of attorney and others,” he said. “I think that there was a difference of opinion on the interpretation of that constitutional amendment in Arizona.”

“So you’re for civil unions?” Stephanopoulos asked.

“No,” he said. “I do not believe gay marriage should be legal. I do not believe gay marriage should be legal,” he repeated. “But I do believe that people ought to be able to enter into contracts, exchange powers of attorney, other ways that people have relationships can enter into.”

Later, he came back: “I just want to point out again: I believe that gay marriage should not be legal. OK?”

There are two possible reasons for this flip flopping position. First, McCain could support civil unions personally, but may believe that voicing that support could sink his support within the Christian conservative movement. In this case, he is just a dishonorable panderer.

The other, more troubling, possibility is that McCain was confused by the question and his short term memory couldn’t hold up to the admittedly simple line of questioning. Remember that earlier in the interview, McCain had to repeatedly refer to his notes in order to answer a straightforward question about his Iraq policy. Was John McCain tired? Is his old age catching up to him? Perhaps he should just stay in the Senate where he can take naps.

Thanks to Americablog for picking up the convoluted logic in Newsweek regarding McCain pandering to the religious right on issues of non-discrimination. From Newsweek:

McCain was clearly squirming when ABC’s George Stephanopoulos pressed him on “This Week” last weekend about whether he supports civil unions, a loaded term among social conservatives who see it as a fig leaf for gay marriage. McCain avoided the phrase but said he supported various partnerships to facilitate hospital visits and the like. His home state of Arizona just voted down an anti-gay marriage initiative that also would have banned domestic partnerships even among heterosexual couples….

McCain gets more latitude on this subject because we sense that in his heart, he’s a Goldwater libertarian. Social issues are not what drive him in public life. He’s playing to his party’s conservative base as newly defined by the religious right, but if elected president, he’s not going to be beholden to them the way Bush has been…The voters may be less inclined to give Romney a pass if he goes overboard with his fealty to the right.

So McCain is lying to us, but that makes him honorable? What sort of horse-shit logic is that? If Senator John McCain were truly an honorable man, he would let everyone know exactly where he stands on the issue of civil unions. No equivocating, no vague talking points. Apparently the straight talk express is lost on the curving roads of political desire.

While being interviewed by George Stephanopoulos, Senator John McCain can’t say more than a few words without glancing at his notes. There’s nothing wrong with having an outline of talking points and I certainly would not begrudge an old man a cue card or two, but this is getting ridiculous.

As Senator McCain has aged, how much has his memory degraded? I don’t want to be mean, but we are talking about a man who wants to be President of the United States of America. We can’t afford to have a President who is losing his short term memory.

According to some campaign operatives in Ohio, 70 year old Senator John McCain just couldn’t keep up the demanding schedule set for him during the 2006 campaign season:

“He was tired, he was short, he went his own way.” “Nothing close” to the energy level necessary for a presidential campaign: “He was out of gas well before he should have been.”

The Presidency is an unimaginably stressful and demanding job, one that requires long periods of concentration and unending energy. If Senator McCain were to win the Presidency, he would be 72 when sworn in.

It seems that McCain isn’t physically up to the job.