McCain Then and Now:

On Thursday, John McCain toured areas of New Orleans that are still damaged from Hurricane Katrina and tried to explain how he would have done things differently had he been President.

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John McCain: Never again will a disaster of this nature be handled in the terrible and disgraceful way that it was handled. Never again.

Dana Bash: John McCain used these vivid reminders of a stained Bush legacy to try to distance himself. President Bush famously flew over New Orleans in the days after Katrina, a mistake McCain said he would not have made.

John McCain: In all candor if I had been President of the United States I'd have ordered the plane landed at the nearest Air Force base and I'd have been over here.

Yep, John McCain would have hopped off of that plane and done what exactly? He didn't say, so we're left to guess whether he would have used Air Force One to rescue evacuees (and if so, why didn't he hop on his private jet and do so at the time? just sayin') or is it more likely he would have simply held a photo-op presser like he did yesterday and the day Hurricane Katrina hit.

Now, I guess it's asking a lot to let something like Katrina spoil his birthday plans, but if he really would have done things so differently had he been President, honestly, then why didn't he at least say something along the lines of: 'I'm flattered you still thought enough to come, Mr. President, but don't you have something more important you should be attending to?' and wouldn't he at least have exercised better judgment than to participate in a laugh-filled photo-op with the President for the historical record that fateful day?

Despite all the talk at yesterday's campaign photo-op, John McCain's actions then and since could not be more stark in contrast:

The fact is, McCain has a history of denying the Gulf Coast aid when it needs it most and a record of outrageous votes to show for it. Instead of helping the area rebuild after Hurricane Katrina and the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast get back on their feet, McCain actually voted to deny emergency funding to the area, and he voted against giving victims of Katrina access to Medicaid and unemployment benefits.

As if it wasn't already baffling enough that McCain would even dare mention Katrina with a record like that, it's especially so right now seeing as how just this past Tues the radical pastor John Hagee once again reminded the world that he's a nut who literally believes that Katrina occurred because God damned America, or at least the gulf coast of it. Hagee has been saying as much for years in his sermons, but McCain has yet to comment on Hagee’s offensive beliefs about Hurricane Katrina and just this past Sun McCain reiterated that he's "glad to have" Hagee's endorsement

I haven't seen a worse staged photo-op belied of the facts since, well ...