Hillary Rodham Clinton, move over. John McCain has decided to join you in the "Let's Beat Up Barack Obama Hypocrites Club" with his remarks on Sunday that the Illinois senator is insensitive to poor people and out of touch on economic issues because of his opposition to suspending the federal gasoline tax...

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Hillary Clinton's Not the Only Presidential Candidate Full of Hypocritical B.S. on the Class Issue; Where Does John McCain Get Off Calling Barack Obama 'Out of Touch' With the Poor When His Own Party Has Forced Working-Class Americans to Bear More of the Tax Burden By Cutting Taxes to the Wealthy?

PLUS: Clinton Makes an Extremely Dangerous Statement About Iran in TV Interview


By Skeeter Sanders

Once again, we have a candidate for the nation's highest office dumping a truckload of hypocritical B.S. about class issues -- specifically, accusing a rival candidate of being an "elitist" and insensitive to working-class and poor Americans.

But this time, the hypocrite isn't Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose hypocrisy in calling Senator Barack Obama, her chief rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, an "elitist" was exposed by this blogger two weeks ago when I reminded readers that her husband, former President Bill Clinton, championed free-trade agreements that have cost thousands of working-class Americans their jobs.

But on the eve of Tuesday's Democratic primary in Pennsylvania, the New York senator and former first lady made a remark about Iran in a television interview that this blogger considers extremely dangerous to world peace and stability. More on that later.

Republican presidential nominee-elect John McCain on Sunday has done the same thing the former first lady did on Obama's alleged "elitism," calling the Illinois senator insensitive to poor people and out of touch on economic issues.

Excuse me, Senator McCain, but as the nominee of the party long known as the "party of the rich," you're hardly in any position to accuse Obama or any other Democrat of being out of touch with the working class and the poor.

Here we have the nominee of the party that has given away billions of dollars in tax breaks to the nation's wealthiest citizens -- and who is himself one of the wealthiest members of the United States Senate, with a net worth of $44 million, according to the McClatchy Newspapers -- accusing Obama, who grew up with modest means, of being out of touch with the working-class and the poor.

What a crock of 100 percent pure, unadulterated, hypocritical B.S.! Actually, it's worse than B.S. It's the kind of hypocrisy that bears the unmistakable smell of the liquid fertilizer that farmers spread onto their fields at the start of the planting season -- a smell far more nauseating than a skunk's (I live out in farm country, so I know what I'm talking about).

McCain Opposed -- But Now Favors -- Tax Cuts for the Wealthy

This is the same John McCain who blasted President Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest one percent of Americans as fiscally irresponsible and was the only Republican in the Senate who voted against them. These tax cuts have resulted in middle-class and working-class Americans bearing more of the tax burden, percentage-wise, while reducing the tax burden of the wealthy.

But instead of shifting the tax burden back upon those who can most afford to bear it, McCain wants to make these "fiscally irresponsible" tax cuts for the wealthy permanent, instead of giving tax relief to those who need it most: Middle-class and working-class Americans.

McCain rapped his Democratic rival for opposing his idea to suspend the tax on fuel during the summer, a proposal that McCain believes will particularly help low-income people who usually have older cars that guzzle more gas.

"I noticed again today that Senator Obama repeated his opposition to giving low-income Americans a tax break, a little bit of relief so they can travel a little further and a little longer, and maybe have a little bit of money left over to enjoy some other things in their lives," McCain said. "Obviously, Senator Obama does not understand that this would be a nice thing for Americans, and the special interests should not be dictating this policy."

How Does Cutting Gas Tax Help Low-Income Americans Who Don't Have Cars?

On the contrary, it is Senator McCain who does not understand. In the first place, most low-income Americans -- especially those on fixed incomes -- don't own cars. They can't afford them. The urban poor rely on public transportation to get around.

This blogger should know. I grew up poor. For years, I couldn't afford to buy a car. I know what it's like to not have the freedom of movement to commute to and from a decent-paying job that was located beyond the reach of public transportation networks because I didn't have a car. So you can't tell me, Senator McCain, that suspending the federal gasoline tax is going to help low-income Americans who can't afford to own a car in the first place.

In any case, suspending the gasoline tax won't amount to a hill of beans as long as the price of crude oil continues to skyrocket -- and it will, given the exploding demand for oil in China and India and the refusal of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to increase output.

The Arizona senator forgets that 70 percent of the price of gasoline is directly tied to the price of the crude oil from which it is refined. At the rate that the price of crude oil keeps rising, any suspension of the federal gasoline tax would be quickly offset by the soaring crude price, resulting in no savings for consumers at all -- not to mention a massive addition to the already-bloated federal deficit.

Since When Is It 'Elitist' To Hike Capital-Gains Tax on Millionaires?

Then there's McCain's criticism of Obama's call for raising the capital-gains tax. "Senator Obama wants to raise the capital gains tax, which would have a direct effect on 100 million Americans," McCain said. "That means he has no understanding of the economy and that he is totally insensitive to the hopes and dreams and ambitions of 100 million Americans who will be affected by his almost doubling of the capital gains tax."

Once again, it's Senator McCain who doesn't understand. Those 100 million Americans he cites are, in fact, Americans who earn over $1 million a year -- including Obama himself and his wife, Michelle, who reported earning roughly $4 million on their 2007 income-tax return, mostly from royalties from the sale of his two books, Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope.

I don't know about you, but I don't consider millionaires to be part of the working class -- let alone the poor -- by a long shot. Never have, never will. And multimillionaires like McCain (worth $44 million) and the Clintons (worth $109 million, according to their 2007 tax return) -- not to mention multibillionaires like Rupert Murdoch, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Ted Turner -- can certainly afford to pay higher capital-gains taxes. Indeed, they're a drop in the bucket to them.

In an interview with Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday" -- his first-ever one-on-one appearance on Murdoch's conservative-leaning cable news channel -- Obama fired back by noting that McCain "not only wants to continue some of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and corporations, he actually wants to extend them, and he hasn't told us really how he's going to pay for them. It's irresponsible. And the irony is he said [the Bush tax cuts were] irresponsible [in the first place]."

Obama also said he would not raise the capital-gains tax higher than it was under President Ronald Reagan and added, "I'm mindful that we've got to keep our capital-gains tax to a point where we can actually get more revenue."

An "elitist" would actively oppose any increase in the capital-gains tax -- indeed, an "elitist" would argue for even more cuts in that tax -- which is precisely what the Republicans continue to clamor for.

The Real Elitists Are the Republicans

The Republican Party has had the reputation of being the party of big business since the 1920s. But it was President Herbert Hoover's tepid response to the worsening economic calamity that became the Great Depression that solidified the GOP's image as the party of the wealthy -- an image it has never been able to shake off, even during the Reagan years.

The GOP is certainly more associated with Wall Street than with Main Street, since only a handful of the nation's top corporate executives -- most notably Buffet and Gates -- are registered Democrats. It's virtually de rigeur for members of the wealthy elite to vote Republican. And despite the best efforts of the party's far right wing, the so-called "country-club Republicans" came back with a vengeance during Bush's presidency.

The Democratic Party has always been the party of the working class -- even when it was the racially segregationist party during much of its history prior to the end of World War II and President Harry S. Truman's 1947 executive order to desegregate the Army.

So for the nominee-elect of the "rich people's party" to claim that the front-runner for the nomination of the "working-class party" is an elitist and out of touch with working-class Americans is the highest of the height of hypocritical B.S. Indeed, it's a sick joke.

Senator McCain should be ashamed of himself.

Clinton: I'll 'Obliterate' Iran If It Attacks Israel -- But Russia Might Strike Back

As for Senator Clinton, she further displayed tough talk in an interview that aired on ABC's "Good Morning America" as the polls opened for last Tuesday's Pennsylvania Democratic presidential primary. ABC News' Chris Cuomo asked Clinton what she would do if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons.

"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," Clinton said. "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

That's an extremely dangerous statement for Clinton to make. There is only one way to "obliterate" Iran, as the former first lady put it -- and that is to use nuclear weapons against it. It's dangerous because of Iran's close geographical proximity to Russia. Only a fool would believe that Russia would merely sit idly by while a country that lies literally on its doorstep is "obliterated" in a nuclear attack.

Indeed, The 'Skeeter Bites Report alerted readers back in November that Russian President Vladimir Putin had served notice that if the United States launched a military strike against Iran, Moscow would regard it as an attack on Russia itself -- raising the specter of a direct military confrontation between the two nuclear-armed giants.

Putin issued his warning during a closed-door, face-to-face meeting with Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, near the end of the Russian president's visit last October to Tehran -- the first by a Kremlin leader since World War II -- for a summit of the five Caspian Sea nations, according to the Internet news site Asia Times Online, citing high-level diplomatic sources.

He stopped short of saying explicitly what Russia would do if the U.S. struck Iran. But by stating that an attack on Iran would be tantamount to an attack on Russia itself, Putin strongly hinted of retaliatory measures by Moscow.

Putin and Khamenei agreed on a plan to "nullify" the Bush administration's increasingly bellicose rhetoric against the Islamic Republic over its nuclear development program, the sources said, amid growing concern that Washington is preparing to launch a pre-emptive military attack -- perhaps in the form of a tactical nuclear strike -- against Iran.

The Russian president told his Iranian host that "an American attack on Iran will be viewed by Moscow as an attack on Russia," Asia Times Online quoted its sources as saying.

Putin Warned U.S. Not to Use Ex-Soviet Republic as Base to Attack Iran

At the Caspian Sea summit meeting, Putin publicly warned the U.S. not to use a former Soviet republic to stage an attack on Iran. He also said countries bordering the Caspian Sea must jointly back any oil pipeline projects in the region.

Putin said none of the five nations’ territory "should be used by any outside countries for use of military force against any nation in the region" -- a clear reference to long-standing rumors that the U.S. was planning to use the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan as a staging ground for any possible military action against Iran.

“We are saying that no Caspian nation should offer its territory to third powers for use of force or military aggression against any Caspian state,” Putin said.

The private Putin-Khamenei meeting following the summit was extraordinary in and of itself, for Iran's supreme leader rarely receives foreign dignitaries, even a head of state with the stature of Putin. The Russian president told the ayatollah that he may hold the "ultimate solution" regarding Iran's highly controversial nuclear program, the sources said.

For his part, Khamenei insisted that his country's nuclear program was strictly for civilian purposes and vowed that it would continue, the official Iranian news agency IRNA reported. But he did tell Putin, "We will ponder your words and proposal."

An Iranian government spokesman was quoted by IRNA as saying that Putin had a "special plan" that Khamenei said was "ponderable," although Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had publicly denied the Russians had volunteered such a plan. Details of the Putin proposal were not disclosed.

America -- and the World -- Can't Afford Another 'Shoot-From-the-Hip' President

With her statement that she'd "obliterate" Iran -- and the only way to do so is with nukes -- Clinton is sounding like a even more trigger-happy cowboy than President Bush. The last thing America needs is a president who'll shoot first and ask questions later in foreign-policy matters when such an approach could be disastrous not only for America, but for the entire planet.


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Volume III, Number 28
Copyright 2008, Skeeter Sanders. All rights reserved.

Authors Website: http://www.skeeterbitesreport.com

Authors Bio:
I'm a native of New York City who's called the Green Mountain state of Vermont home since the summer of 1994. A former freelance journalist, I'm a fiercely independent freethinker who's highly skeptical of authority figures -- especially when they're on the wrong side of the issues I care about. But I'm not afraid to also call into question those with whom I would usually be "on the same page" if and when they, too, are on the wrong side of the issues I care about.