FactCheck: Obama Ad Distorts McCain's Role in Job Loss | Newsweek Politics: Campaign 2008

Distorting the DHL Deal

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The revised amendment would have prohibited DHL (which, at the time, was the only non-U.S. air carrier with a major U.S. presence) from engaging in business with the federal government. McCain participated in the debate of the Stevens amendment but registered no objection to it at the time. The amendment passed via voice vote, so there is no record of McCain's position. The spending bill passed 93 to 0.

Obama for America Radio Ad
Narrator: July 9. 2008. Portsmouth, Ohio. Here's what John McCain said about DHL's plans to eliminate 8,200 Ohio jobs.

McCain: I gotta look you in the eye and give you straight talk. I don't know if I can stop it or not or if it will be stopped.

Narrator: But there's something John McCain's not telling you: It was McCain who used his influence in the Senate to help foreign-owned DHL buy a U.S. company and gain control over the jobs that are now on the chopping block in Ohio.

And that's not all: McCain's campaign manager was the top lobbyist for the DHL deal – helped push it through. His firm was paid $185,000 to lobby McCain and other senators.

Now 8,200 Ohioans are facing layoffs, and foreign-owned DHL doesn't care.

McCain: I gotta look you in the eye and give you straight talk.

Narrator: John McCain. Same old politics. Same failed policies.

Obama: I'm Barack Obama, candidate for president, and I approved this message. Paid for by Obama for America.

McCain did later voice opposition to even the watered-down version of the amendment; on April 11, 2003, Congressional Quarterly reported that McCain sent letters to members of the House and Senate finance committees urging them not to include Stevens' language in the conference version of the bill. (The House and Senate often pass different versions of spending bills; they must then reconcile the differences in a conference.) In a press release at the time, McCain stated:

McCain (April 17, 2003): If there are legitimate reasons to change the criteria for determining US-citizen control of air cargo carriers, these considerations should be clearly articulated and debated in the normal legislative process - not inserted into a non-amendable vehicle in the dead of night.

McCain's efforts were unsuccessful. The final version of the bill, which became Public Law 108-11, includes Stevens' language and goes on to specify conditions for an air carrier to demonstrate that it is controlled by U.S. citizens. A December 2003 Congressional Research Service report concluded that the law applied to only two U.S. air carriers: ABX Air and ASTAR Air Cargo. However, in May 2004 (after the merger had taken place) the Department of Transportation ruled that ASTAR qualified as U.S. citizen-controlled. And a spokesperson for ABX Air told FactCheck.org that ABX "has never been precluded from bidding on government contracts."

The ads would be correct to point out that McCain opposed the version of the Stevens amendment that would have effectively prohibited the DHL sale. They would even be correct to point out that he opposed the watered-down version, which merely made the merger less attractive. But it's a stretch to suggest that McCain alone could have prevented the deal. There was considerable opposition even to the watered-down version, and President Bush opposed altering military contracts in the midst of two ongoing wars in Asia. Stevens' amendment might have passed if McCain supported it, but there is no way to know that.

Moreover the ads go too far in attributing motives to McCain. The Arizona senator has long crusaded against the practice of inserting pet projects into spending bills, and his April 17 press release lists the Stevens amendment as just one of the spending bill's 51 earmarks and 16 policy changes that he opposed. We can't judge people's motives, but we've seen no evidence to suggest that McCain's activities were directed at helping DHL do anything at all. And certainly we've seen nothing to suggest that McCain "turned his back on" Wilmington's workers.

A Merger That Was Applauded
The ads also engage in some fishy causal reasoning. The mailer and the radio ad both argue that it's the 2003 merger that is the direct cause of the job losses. But that's far from obvious.

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McCain wants to take credit if a company comes in that supposedly bring new jobs. Then he should be equally willing to acknowledge that he brought in the employer who was not committed to this market. He should connect himself with DHL when they leave as much as when they arrive. Do I smell hypocrisy?

McCain and Republicans want the big players in the market, but fail to work as hard on updating the tax code to penalize firms who move offshore. If McCain spent as much time in Congress as he has hob-nobbing with Petreaus and his pro-Bush buddies overseas, more might have been done to save jobs in the US. Not a big work ethic for him - missing at so many votes.

No distortion of the facts by McCain's opposition - just some heated criticism of the sort McCain's own campaign has been flinging non-stop in Obama's direction. They often say - don't dish it out if youcan't take it...

"Does either guy share your values" is not exactly the best question to ask about any candidate for the simple reason that some people's "values" are not what governs everybody - the Constitution is what is supposed to govern everybody. This is the problem with "values voting": "values voting" is nothing more than a euphemism for "religious voting" since almost all people's values come from their religions. Conveniently for us, most religions share a set of common values.

The problem is that not all religions share the same exact values, of course. How does society address a difference in religious values that affect society? It defers to the Constitution, of course, and the Constitution allows freedom of religion except when that freedom infringes on the rights of other citizens to live freely. This dynamic should easily dictate the government's position on such disagreeable religious topics as gay marriage; sadly, however, because of the rise of "values voting," it does not. When we start trying to pass laws based strictly on religious values - that is, legislating morality by rule of the religious majority - then we are not adhering to the Constitution, which provides equal protection under the law to people of all religions or non-religions. Let us get back to the matter of homosexuality then: if we ban so-called gay marriage, we are doing nothing more than forcing our religious values on everybody else - including those who do not share our religious values - and thus denying them equal protection to pursue their happiness. And laws such as ones that ban gay marriage - which has never been shown to be detrimental to other citizens' constitutional rights or society itself - do not protect citizens from those who might interfere with our rights; they merely DENY some citizens one of the rights that almost every other citizen takes for granted. The only thing gay marriage has proven to be is an act (or just an idea in most cases) that is offensive to the religious beliefs of certain citizens - but nothing more, and certainly not detrimental enough to society as a whole to warrant a law forbidding it! (By the way: proponents of such a law proclaim that banning gay marriage would be protecting something - "the sanctity of marriage," that is - but I do not believe the Founding Fathers intended the Constitution to guarantee safety to abstract ideals such as the "sanctity of marriage." Does THAT end this silly little argument?)

The Founding Fathers had a very specific vision of government in mind: their government drew an extremely visible line between church & state and involved itself in the private lives of its citizens as little as possible. Thus, voting based on values - which is essentially passing laws based on your religious values because you are voting for "lawmakers" - is intrinsically incompatible with the Founding Fathers' vi

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Posted By: cmilesgervc @ 09/11/2008 4:53:55 PM

I've really heard enough of McCain's whining. It is ok for his false remarks on Obama and yes i feel McCain is clueless the majority of the time on the middle class folks he or Palin does not have to do without
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Posted By: dorfy @ 08/25/2008 5:52:47 PM

McCain wants to take credit if a company comes in that supposedly bring new jobs. Then he should be equally willing to acknowledge that he brought in the employer who was not committed to this market. He should connect himself with DHL when they leave as much as when they arrive. Do I smell hypocrisy?

McCain and Republicans want the big players in the market, but fail to work as hard on updating the tax code to penalize firms who move offshore. If McCain spent as much time in Congress as he has hob-nobbing with Petreaus and his pro-Bush buddies overseas, more might have been done to save jobs in the US. Not a big work ethic for him - missing at so many votes.

No distortion of the facts by McCain's opposition - just some heated criticism of the sort McCain's own campaign has been flinging non-stop in Obama's direction. They often say - don't dish it out if youcan't take it...
- Reply
- Report Abuse
Posted By: Murray Rizberg @ 08/18/2008 7:31:49 PM

"Does either guy share your values" is not exactly the best question to ask about any candidate for the simple reason that some people's "values" are not what governs everybody - the Constitution is what is supposed to govern everybody. This is the problem with "values voting": "values voting" is nothing more than a euphemism for "religious voting" since almost all people's values come from their religions. Conveniently for us, most religions share a set of common values.

The problem is that not all religions share the same exact values, of course. How does society address a difference in religious values that affect society? It defers to the Constitution, of course, and the Constitution allows freedom of religion except when that freedom infringes on the rights of other citizens to live freely. This dynamic should easily dictate the government's position on such disagreeable religious topics as gay marriage; sadly, however, because of the rise of "values voting," it does not. When we start trying to pass laws based strictly on religious values - that is, legislating morality by rule of the religious majority - then we are not adhering to the Constitution, which provides equal protection under the law to people of all religions or non-religions. Let us get back to the matter of homosexuality then: if we ban so-called gay marriage, we are doing nothing more than forcing our religious values on everybody else - including those who do not share our religious values - and thus denying them equal protection to pursue their happiness. And laws such as ones that ban gay marriage - which has never been shown to be detrimental to other citizens' constitutional rights or society itself - do not protect citizens from those who might interfere with our rights; they merely DENY some citizens one of the rights that almost every other citizen takes for granted. The only thing gay marriage has proven to be is an act (or just an idea in most cases) that is offensive to the religious beliefs of certain citizens - but nothing more, and certainly not detrimental enough to society as a whole to warrant a law forbidding it! (By the way: proponents of such a law proclaim that banning gay marriage would be protecting something - "the sanctity of marriage," that is - but I do not believe the Founding Fathers intended the Constitution to guarantee safety to abstract ideals such as the "sanctity of marriage." Does THAT end this silly little argument?)

The Founding Fathers had a very specific vision of government in mind: their government drew an extremely visible line between church & state and involved itself in the private lives of its citizens as little as possible. Thus, voting based on values - which is essentially passing laws based on your religious values because you are voting for "lawmakers" - is intrinsically incompatible with the Founding Fathers' vi