McCain adviser apologizes for terrorist attack remark
Charlie Black, a top adviser to Republican John McCain, apologized yesterday for suggesting that another terrorist attack on US soil would help McCain's prospects.
In an interview with Fortune magazine, Black said, "Certainly it would be a big advantage to him."
In a statement he read to reporters outside a McCain fund-raiser in Fresno, Calif., Black said, "I deeply regret the comments - they were inappropriate. I recognize that John McCain has devoted his entire adult life to protecting his country and placing its security above every other consideration."
McCain had earlier distanced himself from Black's remarks, telling reporters, "I cannot imagine why he would say it. It's not true. I've worked tirelessly since 9/11 to prevent another attack on the United States of America."
FOON RHEE
The presumptive Republican nominee proposed a $300 million government prize for anyone who can develop a next-generation car battery that can leapfrog available plug-in hybrids or electric cars, as he and Democratic rival Barack Obama tussled for another day about how best to deal with $4-a-gallon gasoline.
The prize would equate to $1 for every American, "a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency," McCain said yesterday at Fresno State University.
The Arizona senator also proposed levying stiffer fines on automakers who skirt fuel-efficiency standards, and encouraging automakers to develop zero-carbon emissions cars by offering consumers a $5,000 tax credit for buying one, as well as incentives to increase use of domestic and foreign alcohol-based fuels such as ethanol.
Last week, McCain also called for lifting the longstanding federal ban on offshore oil drilling to reduce dependence on foreign oil. With McCain campaigning in California, Obama and the Democrats pointed out that when he ran for president in 2000, he told the state's voters that he supported the ban - and that his new position puts him out of step with the state's political leaders, including Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a fellow Republican.
McCain and Republicans, meanwhile, are saying Obama has a "do-nothing" energy policy.
GLOBE STAFF AND ASSOCIATED PRESS
Presented Friday at a meeting of Democratic governors, the logo looked suspiciously like the presidential seal, featuring a similar bald eagle holding an olive branch in one set of talons and spears in the other and boasting its own Latin saying, a rough translation of "Yes We Can," his slogan. The logo was almost universally panned as a tad too presumptuous, among other sins.
"That was a onetime thing for a onetime event," Obama communications director Robert Gibbs told CNN yesterday.
FOON RHEE
Touring a bakery, he told the female workers about how he was raised by a single mother and his grandmother, and how he supported and McCain opposed legislation earlier this year that would have made it easier for women to sue their employers for pay discrimination. McCain has said he supports equal pay for women, but had said the measure would lead to more lawsuits.
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