Also posted on the YP4 Blog...
Did anyone catch McCain at the De La Hoya - Mayweather fight Saturday night?
If you look at the third row at the left of the screen, you should be able to make out the Senator and his wife, in this clip.
Well, some may remember that Senators McCain and Reid, former amatuer boxers themselves, introduced a bill for federal boxing regulations that ultimately failed to move forward. The efforts, however, nearly caused an ethics inquiry on both Senators last year, looking into their special "ringside seats" received from the Nevada Athletic Commission.
Several allegations circled the Beltway that the NAC was trying to win support from McCain and Reid by supposedly providing them ringside seats for several boxing matches.
The allegations went about as far as the legislation itself... so, if you are drawing a blank, check out the story here.
Interestingly enough, the scrutinized boxing match McCain attended was a De La Hoya championship fight in yet another devastating defeat, this time at the hands of Bernard Hopkins in September 2004.
"Reid, left, and McCain at De La Hoya fight in 2004..."
He went from being ringside buddy with Reid, to throwing several jabs in a verbal spar against him! Why? While McCain can somehow support Congressional efforts for the federal oversight of boxing, he can’t seem to support the Congressional efforts for the appropriate oversight of the war in Iraq.
Bill Kristol seemed to miss the irony a couple weeks ago when he wrote the Times article, McCain v. Reid.
McCain’s unrelenting defense of the "surge" in Iraq places him in direct odds with Reid, leading to some trash talking over the past several weeks that made Mayweather’s pre-fight bravado seem tame:
Democratic leaders smiled and cheered as the last votes [for the Iraq funding bill] were counted. What were they celebrating? Defeat? Surrender? In Iraq, only our enemies were cheering.
To stick with the boxing theme, McCain... that was a low blow.
These empty, rhetorical punches do little to conceal the fact that it was McCain who voted against the troop funding bill. Not to mention, he continues to support a policy that continually places them in harm's way with no real plan for victory or Iraqi security, let alone an exit strategy. Is all of this political pandering really worth the Republican nomination?
Well in case you were wondering, the Senator reportedly was pulling for the Golden Boy in this match, who ended up being the losing contender in a split decision.
And long as McCain continues to pull for Bush’s corner on this war, he's unlikely to be a winning contender either.