File this under completely strange. McCain appeared yesterday on Morning Joe on MSNBC talking about his vote for the Senate bailout bill, which has since passed through Congress and will land on George Bush’s desk soon. The bill contained billions in earmarks and incentives to get more lawmakers to vote for it, upping its cost to over $800 billion. Yet McCain continues his Ahab-esque quest against earmarks during this interview, which is especially odd considering, as both hosts point out, that he himself voted for it.

McCain goes on to talk about how this is evidence that the system is broken, that earmarks are out of control, and then discusses his pride in bringing everyone together to get a deal done. 

Huh? For one thing, McCain sure seems to hate this bill despite having voted for it, but then is quick to sing its praises just seconds later. In the first half of the interview, he even seems to suggest that he hopes Bush will veto it. Excuse me? Why the hell did you even vote for it if you want the President to veto it? 

More bizarre than that, though, is McCain touting himself as the one who got this done while Obama “phoned it in.” Okay, for one thing, they were both there. Secondly, McCain helped hold up the initial bailout by whipping House Republicans into a frenzy, and his support convinced them to vote against it. Then, a bill gets passed that includes billions of dollars worth of evil, delicious earmarks. So if you want to be really positive about this, McCain delayed the bill to make it more palatable for the House to pass.

The issue with that is that the bill was made more palatable because of the numerous earmarks added in. My congresswoman Diane Watson, for instance, didn’t vote for the initial bailout, but a multi-million dollar tax exemption was thrown in to convince her to, as it was one she had lobbied for to convince movie studios to shoot in the United States (which benefits many people in her district). All of this pork and other incentives thrown in upped the cost of the bailout to over $800 billion; I can’t imagine many constituents are terribly happy about that.

For McCain to go nuts about earmarks and seem to hope George Bush will veto this bill for that reason, then to brag about how he got this done (by including a shitload of pork) is just baffling. He’s contradicting himself left and right, almost having arguments with himself like Willem Defoe in Spider-Man. Further, how is it supposed to look to voters who were already pissed about the bailout? John McCain is bragging that he made something happen (which he didn’t) by helping a revised version of the bill to pass that costs $100 billion more? Is anybody honestly happy about that?

This interview is just really, really strange and honestly disturbing. You can see both hosts getting visibly uncomfortable as well. What the hell is wrong with him? Schizophrenia? Dementia? Outright lunacy? For someone who’s supposed to be a “safe” choice with the experience to lead America, the fact that he can’t even seem to agree with himself on something he voted for is downright unsettling.