Sen. John McCain has been MIA for three very important votes; FISA, Medicare, and the GI bill.  Is it possible that the Senator has decided that he has much more important things to do than his job as a United States Senator?  The Arizona senator was in Ohio yesterday doing a town hall meeting while 90 of his colleagues, including Sen. Ted Kennedy and Sen. Barack Obama, made it to the senate floor to vote on the Medicare bill.  All three previously mentioned bills have serious implications to his Arizonan constituents as well as to the American people. It is perplexing as to why McCain didn’t show up.  Just to put this in perspective, McCain has a history of missing votes.  According to the Washington Post, in 2007 McCain missed 374votes which represents 62 percent of the total votes.  To be fair, Obama missed 263 votes or 43 percent of the total votes.  Still, McCain has missed more votes than a Senator who suffered from a brain hemmorage and spent several months in 2007 recovering.  It’s not just that he missed a significant amount of votes, what is significant is the votes that he missed.  The Senator from Arizona not voting for the Medicare bill????  Where is the focus on the people?  Where is the courage of convictions?

Yesterday, the Senate reversed course and voted to pass a Medicare bill that would avoid deep cuts in Medicare reimbursements for physicians.   McCain not showing up for this vote, when even Sen. Ted Kennedy showed up, is absolutely shameful.  Yes, Sen. Kennedy left his post-surgical sick bed to vote for the reversal of medicare cuts.  McCain’s absenteeism is even more shameful because he is the senator of a state, Arizona, where a significant portion of his constituents (seniors) would be negatively affected by the medicare cuts.  If this bill had not passed, it would have massively decreased medicare benefits for veterans, seniors, and the disabled.  My question to you Sen. McCain is….are you so busy seeking a promotion that you can’t be bothered to do the job that your constituents elected you to do??  Let us know.  McCain’s absence lead many to conclude that he sided with the insurance companies instead of with senior citizens and the military. If the bill had not passed, Medicare fees to physicians would  have been drastically cut and physicians would have lost so much money treating Medicare patients that they would have stopped taking new Medicare patients.  This bill affects real people in their daily lives.  It is a bill that can put the lives and quality of life of  ordinary Americans at risk.  Is this a lower priority to you Sen. McCain?  I guess I can understand how your 200th town hall meeting would be more important.

One of McCain’s colleagues, Pete Stark (D-CA 13), had this to say:

“Senator Kennedy managed to make it back from treatment for cancer, but Senator McCain couldn’t be bothered. Senator McCain, who wants to be our next President, has skipped this vote three times now. Clearly, he’d rather hide than face up to the insurance industry. You can do that when you’re in the U.S. Senate, maybe voters should leave him there.” 

Sen McCain’s position and lack of support for the GI bill is also very disturbing.  The bill increased educational benefits for veterans.  Why on earth would the most famous veteran in America not bother to vote on such an important bill?  And, even though McCain missed the vote on this bill …..he and Pres. Bush took full credit for its passing.  Sen. Jim Webb worked tirelessly to get this bill passed and was THE person responsible for getting it passed.  McCain and Bush did their best to obviate its passing.  McCain was recently called on the carpet for his record of non support of veterans by a fellow Vietnam veteran at a town hall meeting in Denver.  The flustered senator cited a number of veterans organizations that support him in an attempt to dodge the question of why he did not support or vote for three different vet bills.  The derailed talk express.  Oh…and by the way, it turns out that none of the organizations that McCain rattled off support him at all.  Not sure why the Senator continues to make false claims even when confronted with easily verifiable contradictory evidence. 

One other tidbit, when the vote for the Immigration bill came up in May, McCain did deem the Senate with his presence…..for the photo ops!!  Yes, McCain showed up to Capitol Hill, spoke with the press, and left without voting yay or nay on the bill.  Prorities people!!