Sunday, September 28, 2008

Rolling Craps!


John McCain loves to gamble -- in fact, he loves high stakes gambling, like a guy who gets tax-free income from the government and doesn't have to worry too much about losing it because his spouse has more than enough money for both of them.

But more importantly John McCain loves to gamble at places he specifically oversees as part of his duties in the Senate.

Senator John McCain was on a roll. In a room reserved for high-stakes gamblers at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut, he tossed $100 chips around a hot craps table. When the marathon session ended around 2:30 a.m., the Arizona senator and his entourage emerged with thousands of dollars in winnings.

A lifelong gambler, Mr. McCain takes risks, both on and off the craps table. He was throwing dice that night not long after his failed 2000 presidential bid, in which he was skewered by the Republican Party’s evangelical base, opponents of gambling. Mr. McCain was betting at a casino he oversaw as a member of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, and he was doing so with the lobbyist who represents that casino, according to three associates of Mr. McCain.

But he's the self-proclaimed most honorable man ever, so if he does it, it is only with honorable intentions and the most moral gambling problem ever -- and those who don't have such a petty vice with a blatant appearance of impropriety are beneath him and not even worth a second's eye-contact.

Perhaps no episode burnished Mr. McCain’s image as a reformer more than his stewardship three years ago of the Congressional investigation into Jack Abramoff, the disgraced Republican Indian gambling lobbyist who became a national symbol of the pay-to-play culture in Washington. The senator’s leadership during the scandal set the stage for the most sweeping overhaul of lobbying laws since Watergate.

“I’ve fought lobbyists who stole from Indian tribes,” the senator said in his speech accepting the Republican presidential nomination this month.

But interviews and records show that lobbyists and political operatives in Mr. McCain’s inner circle played a behind-the-scenes role in bringing Mr. Abramoff’s misdeeds to Mr. McCain’s attention — and then cashed in on the resulting investigation. The senator’s longtime chief political strategist, for example, was paid $100,000 over four months as a consultant to one tribe caught up in the inquiry, records show.



Etc., etc., etc.

So, given his love of casinos and literal gambling and his behavior the last several weeks one has to ask whether or not John McCain has a "GAMBLING PROBLEM" or if the guy is an adrenaline junkie.

And whether we even have to bother to ask whether that's not really a good thing in a President?

[pic found here]

No comments: