Op-Ed: McCain's Pants Will Burn

The New York Times published an article Sunday comparing John McCain with Theodore Roosevelt. In looking at Roosevelt, McCain apparently sees much of himself. In looking at McCain, I see a liar.

Captain Combover is at it again, vying for the votes of the almighty undecideds. And with a front page report in The New York Times' Sunday edition, McCain surely reached many of his target audience; the question is, will they believe him? McCain, with the help of writers Adam Nagourney and Michael Cooper, wasted no time in comparing himself to Teddy Roosevelt - one of the United States' best president, without question. Why Teddy? Well, there is one simple answer. The environment. For many Americans, climate change is a serious issue in the 2008 election. What's more, according to 'Green Piece' (yes, piece), Obama scores "in the high 90's" on environmental issues, while McCain scores a meager 53%. Now this information should be taken with a grain of salt, heck, the website is called Green Piece... 'nuff said, right? But, just as note worthy is that the Green Piece blog is the first search result on Google when one searches for 'Environment, McCain versus Obama'. And this brings us back to Teddy Roosevelt. Roosevelt was the greatest environmentalist in U.S. history, if ever there has been one. During his stay in the White House, Roosevelt decreed some 194 million acres of U.S. land as National Parks and nature preserves. And thus in essence, McCain is trying to let all the pro-green people out there - especially if they don't know who they are going to vote for - that he is not like the current Republican administration. McCain is trying to say that he is not like Obama. McCain is trying to say that he, on the environment, is as good as the best there ever was. And this brings us to the lies. That 53% score card was actually conducted by a legitimate group, it just is most commonly viewed through the Green Piece website. The study was issued by the League of Conservation Voters - which is comprised of some 274 Republicans (with 247 Democrats and 8 Independents). Why did McCain score so poorly? Well one possible answer is because McCain, in spite of constantly referring to Teddy Roosevelt as his hero, supports state-by-state environmental regulations. "The states should decide to enormous degrees what happens within those states, including off their coasts. The people of California have decided they don't want oil drilling off their coasts. The people of Louisiana have decided that they do. I applaud the governor's efforts and that of other states in this region and other states to try to eliminate the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change." Translation: States can deal with climate change. That does not sound like Teddy to me. To me it sounds like a rant from a presidential candidate who is dead set on not stepping on any toes. McCain wants to appeal to the voters of California (good luck, Captain EarlyDinner), but at the same time does not want to offend the voters of Louisiana. Sure, many issues should be left for states to determine. But if you call yourself the second coming of Theodore Roosevelt you should have some backbone when it comes to the environment. And McCain does not. To be simple, McCain's front page article was just more pandering. The New York Times offered an outlet to reach countless thousands of potential voters, and McCain used it to say that he is better than Obama on the issue of the environment. Fat chance. It is one thing to say that your hero is Theodore Roosevelt, but to compare yourself to him while at the same time taking no definitive action to protect the environment leads me to one conclusion. McCain's pants must be on fire... Thanks for reading. GRMM