McCain's Lobbyist Pals Forced to Jump Ship

Conflict-of-interest charges are causing problems for Sen. John McCain's presidential bid.

That's right, Sooner fans, ole Straight Talk John has found ethical problems in his own campaign staff because several top McCain staffers have ties to foreign governments.

News organizations reported today that McCain's top foreign policy adviser has lobbied the senator's staff on behalf of the republic of Georgia while he was working for the campaign.

Five—count 'em, five—McCain advisers have left the campaign recently because of conflict-of-interest problems.

All of this supports the notion that the Arizona senator has a blind spot when it comes to good ole boy cronyism.

Cheney Speaks to New Coast Guard Officers

After a break (work, work, work!), AltTulsa is back—and on the Dick Cheney beat.

It seems that America's least popular national politician was the commencement speaker today at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn. We don't know what Cheney told the new officers, but we expect he said something grand about national service and sacrifice.

AT believes in those values as well. But unlike the vice president, we didn't get five—yes, five!—deferments to avoid military service.

Cheney's lame excuse: He had "other priorities."

Despite this failure, Cheney has spent his political life as an unreconstructed hawk. This means he has approved sending our sons and daughters off to war, something he was never willing to do.

But wait, there's more!

In case you missed it, Cheney was one of the Republican big dogs who went to Mississippi earlier this month in support of a GOP Congressional candidate. That candidate lost to the Democrat—this in a solid Red State.

Cheney or not, things aren't looking good for the Republicans in the fall.

Oklahoma Barbecue Wins Praise

AT hasn't been out on the barbecue trail lately, but Natalie Mikles has.

Mikles, a writer for the Tulsa World, has published a couple of recent stories on prize-winning Oklahoma barbecue. Just the other day, the newspaper published a feature story on Sperry's Donny Teel, who was proclaimed "one of the world's greatest barbecuers."

Since we haven't eaten at Buffalo's BBQ, we can't vouch for this claim. But Mikles has plenty of evidence to support the headline that Donny Teel is the real barbecue deal. He works out of a trailer on Highway 11 in Sperry. On weekends, he's on the road to barbecue competitions around the country.

From the sound of it, Teel sells lots and lots of smoked meat. Mikles recommends Buffalo's ribs, sliced beef sandwiches, and smoked pork.

Some other barbecue recommendations from Mikles:

• Wild Horse Mountain Bar-B-Q, south of Sallisaw

• Smokehouse Bob's, N. 11th Street in Muskogee

• Leo's B-B-Q, N. Kelly in OKC

A Shameless Plug for Tulsa-Area Produce

In case you've been napping (as we have), we want to remind Tulsa shoppers that it's the season for local produce. AltTulsa wants to recommend the Tulsa-area farmers markets.

We are particular fans of the Cherry Street Farmers Market, which takes place every Saturday morning at the corner of Cherry Street (15th Street) and Peoria in mid-town Tulsa.

The Cherry Street folks move the whole affair to Brookside on Wednesday mornings from 8 a.m. to noon. The Brookside location is 41st and Peoria.

Beyond Cherry Street, there is the Pearl Farmers Market, held this year on Mondays from 4:30-7 p.m. For those not familiar with mid-town, the Pearl District is at 6th Street and Peoria.

The suburbs also have farmers markets, including Jenks, Owasso, and Claremore.

Our advice: Check 'em all out.

One More GOP Congressional Sex Scandal

For years, the Democrats were the party of sexual misconduct. Hey, they were liberals, and we all know that liberals are Godless heathens who do whatever they feel like regardless of the consequences.

Yeah, right.

More recently, Republicans in Washington are proving that they too can engage in outrageous sexual misconduct. The latest example: New York Rep. Vito Fossella, a Republican, who was arrested last week on a drunken driving charge in Virginia.

Now we learn that Rep. Fossella has a lot more to worry about than his drunk driving charge. Here's the explanatory headline from The Huffington Post:

GOP Congressman Admits to Affair and Love Child, Cries on House Floor

Inhofe Plays Bait-and-Switch With Vets

Our friends at Think Progress have nailed former Tulsa mayor and current Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe for his flip-flop on aid to veterans.

Here's the complete posting from Think Progress, a comment that points to the shallowness of the Republican commitment to America's war heroes.

On Tuesday, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) quietly withdrew his support from Sen. Jim Webb’s (D-VA) 21st Century GI Bill, and signed onto a competing proposal by Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC). Today, an Iraq war vet from Oklahoma, Miranda Norman, slammed Inhofe for leaving veterans behind:

Senator Inhofe is undermining America’s heroes, as they reach for the American dream. It’s insulting and a slap in the face. Not only has Senator Inhofe turned his back on legislation backed by every veterans’ group, but he signed on to a sham bill, because he thinks veterans are fools who won’t be able to tell the difference.

McCain’s proposal reserves its most generous benefits for those who signed up to serve before 9/11 or those who remain healthy enough — and uninjured — to serve for 12 years. VoteVets has more on why the McCain-Graham bill should be “flat out rejected."

Cheney Spins Oklahoma Republicans

Vice President Dick Cheney, one of the most unpopular politicians in America, was in Tulsa Friday night singing the praises of his boss, President George W. Bush.

Cheney spoke to about 400 party faithful at the Oklahoma Republican Convention at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in downtown Tulsa.

Never one to reflect on the Bush administration's many foreign and domestic failures, Cheney painted an optimistic portrait of the president and his policies. "When the history is written it will be said this is a safer country and a more hopeful world because George Bush was president," Cheney told the convention.

Cheney's sunny prediction overlooks his own dismal performance as a Iraq war prognosticator, where few if any of his predictions have come true. This was the guy, after all, who said made it perfectly clear that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. As Cheney famously put it, there was "no doubt" about this fact.

Cheney's optimism also flies in the face of public opinion polls this week that show Bush's approval at a record low, with less than 30 percent of the public favoring the president.

With gas prices at record highs, a housing crisis, a credit crunch and no end in sight in Iraq, Cheney (and his Oklahoma supporters) are hoping history will vindicate their policies. That could happen, we suppose, but it's a faint hope at this point.

Based on their multitude of mistakes over the past seven years, Bush and Cheney are unlikely to escape the verdict of history.

Bush's War: The Verdict Is In and It's Not Good

AltTulsa's been preoccupied in recent days, and that has affected the quantity of our postings. But we have tried to keep up with the ups and downs of U.S. foreign affairs, which is the subject of this entry.

"The Iraq war is over," Salon writer Gary Kamiya declared earlier this month. "The failure of Bush's surge to produce political reconciliation in Iraq, combined with the unsustainable stress on our military and Congress' unwillingness to keep writing checking for $12 billion a month, all point in one direction: withdrawal."

This bleak but unblinking assessment is Kamiya's preface to "ten commandments" the nation should draw from Bush's disastrous misadventure in Iraq.

Some highlights of the foreign policy gospel according to Kamiya:

Commandment I: Thou shalt not launch preventive wars. Kamiya's rationale: "It is immoral and illegal to attack a state that has not attacked you."

Commandment II: Do not exaggerate the threat posed by terrorism. Kamiya's comment: Terrorism is a deplorable tactic used by the less powerful to achieve certain goals…. It can inflict harm, but it does not pose an existential threat to the United States. Declaring war on it is idiotic and self-defeating. Military responses to terrorism kill civilians and breed more terrorists."

Skipping ahead, let's look at Commandment IV: Recognize that all terrorists are not the same. For example: "Al-Qaida, an absolutist movement with a totalitarian religious ideology, in not the same as Hamas or Hezbollah, which are, respectively, a religious national liberation movement and a complex political party/militia/public-works provider."

Commandment IX: Get the media to grow a spine. Kamiya's dead-on commentary: "The America's media's performance in the run-up to the Iraq war was one of the lowest points in its history. Swept up in war fever, the gutless press acted as a quasi-official cheerleader and failed to subject administration claims to elementary due diligence."

Finally, Commandment X: Grow up and join the world. "More than anything else, it was arrogance that led us into this mess," Kamiya concludes. "A little more humility and diplomacy, and a lot less stupid self-righteousness, would go a long way to restoring America's sadly tarnished standing in the world community."

The full article was published on Salon on April 15. A link to the site is on our blogroll. Kamiya's analysis is worth some serious consideration.

Gov. Henry Praises Obama's Consensus-Building Ability

In a mild surprise, Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry this week endorsed Sen. Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee for president. Henry, one of Oklahoma's superdelegates to the Democratic convention this summer, cited Obama's ability to reach "across party lines on issues vitally important to all citizens."

Henry's endorsement runs counter to the results of February's Oklahoma Democratic primary, which Sen. Hillary Clinton won handily.

In his endorsement, Henry praised Obama as "a strong, committed and inspirational leader, ideally suited to bring together Democrats, independents, and Republicans."

Ken Neal Hits a 'Bitter' Homer

Ken Neal, a long-time Tulsa World editorial writer, scored some points in our book Sunday with a column on the significance of Sen. Barack Obama's "bitter" comment. As you may recall, Obama spoke about working class bitterness in a recent speech, comments that have been attacked far and wide.

Neal points out, however, that a good deal of recent politics has centered on bitterness. He writes, "The success of the Republican Party…has been built on citizen unhappiness, even bitterness, with government."

Later, Neal correctly notes that the private school movement has been driven by unhappiness over government-mandated integration issues, another source of bitterness exploited by the Republicans.

What about taxes? From the "bitter" point of view, they are always bad, Neal points out, because they fund "unnecessary" government programs, even when those programs serve the public interest. Again, the right-wing politicos push the bitterness theme to their political advantage.

The Democrats, Neal adds, don't always help. Their ineptness and stupidity sometimes makes things worse.

Despite it all, Neal concludes, the American system works pretty well, even when the politicians play games.

Bruce 'The Boss' Backs Barack

Singer Bruce Springsteen is supporting Sen. Barack Obama for president.

Springsteen, sometimes called the Bard of New Jersey for his lyrics about the struggles of working class, made the announcement a few days ago on his website.

"[Obama] has the depth, the reflectiveness, and the resilience to be our next president," Springsteen's announcement said. "He speaks to the America I've envisioned in my music for the past 35 years," Springsteen added, "a generous nation with a citizenry willing to tackle nuanced and complex problems, a country that's interested in its collective destiny and in the potential of its gathered spirit."

We doubt that Springsteen's endorsement will sway many voters in Tulsa or elsewhere in Oklahoma, but it's revealing that Springsteen, a man of considerable integrity, has put his celebrity power behind Obama.

Irrational Right-Wing Radio Rant of the Week: Teachers Worse than Drug Dealers

AltTulsa has been really busy of late, so we missed some of this week's "lowlights" in right-wing radio.

Our nomination for overheated rhetorical excess this week is Atlanta-based talker Neal Boortz, who went off on the evils of public school teachers, especially those bold enough to organize themselves into a professional group or union.

But we'll let Boortz speak for himself. You make the call:

[T]he single most dangerous entity, group of people in this country right now are teachers unions…. [T]hey do more damage to this country than all the drug pushers together…. If I had a button right now, two buttons—push this button and it gets rid of all the drug dealers; push this button, it get rid of the teachers unions—I'm getting rid of the teachers unions.

Teachers unions? We thought it was the gays. That Sally Kern lied to us!