Head To Head (8/15/08)

Barack Hussein Obama gets a little too "inside baseball," and, as usual, a lot too far from the facts, for his own good:

Wow, Obama is worried about carrying Ohio?  I thought the Dems had that state in the bag already.  Apparently not.

McCain's same-day response wasn't really responsive, though it did keep him on-message regarding Light-Bringer's tax-hiking schemes:

On just the ads themselves, I'd have to give the nod to Team Hussein.  Fortunately for Lord Queeg, the good folks at FactCheck came to the rescue:

The ads would be correct to point out that McCain opposed the version of the Stevens amendment that would have effectively prohibited the DHL sale. They would even be correct to point out that he opposed the watered-down version, which merely made the merger less attractive. But it’s a stretch to suggest that McCain alone could have prevented the deal. There was considerable opposition even to the watered-down version, and President Bush opposed altering military contracts in the midst of two ongoing wars in Asia. Stevens’ amendment might have passed if McCain supported it, but there is no way to know that.

Moreover the ads go too far in attributing motives to McCain. The Arizona senator has long crusaded against the practice of inserting pet projects into spending bills, and his April 17 press release lists the Stevens amendment as just one of the spending bill’s fifty-one marks and sixteen policy changes that he opposed. We can’t judge people’s motives, but we’ve seen no evidence to suggest that McCain’s activities were directed at helping DHL do anything at all. And certainly we’ve seen nothing to suggest that McCain “turned his back on” Wilmington’s workers.

The ads also engage in some fishy causal reasoning. The mailer and the radio ad both argue that it’s the 2003 merger that is the direct cause of the job losses. But that’s far from obvious.

In fact, for several years, the merger provided significant benefits to the residents of Wilmington. It allowed DHL to invest $1.2 billion into its North American Operations. Part of that investment included transferring operations from an older hub in northern Kentucky to the Wilmington facility, a move that added about a thousand jobs in Wilmington. And while a 2003 article in Aviation Week warned that the merger could affect the survivability of either ABX Air or DHL Airways (which later became ASTAR Air Cargo), the warning proved to be, at best, premature. ABX Air stock rose more than 600% in its first year of operation (ASTAR is privately held).

Airborne’s former employees were happy with the deal, as well. A press release from the Teamsters union praised the “historic” agreement it reached with DHL after the merger. The agreement protected more than six thousand Airborne jobs by including a “no-layoffs provision” and held out a promise of “more Teamster jobs” as the result of anticipated growth. That prediction proved true for a while.

So what did McCain do?  What he always does - oppose earmarks (special interests!) and protectionism.  And were "8,200" Ohio jobs lost overseas?  Of course not.  DHL wanted to invest here because America is (still) a good place to invest and expand their business.  Which Obamanomics will make more difficult, and probably cause DHL, formerly Airborne Express jobs to....shift overseas.

But the Lion (formerly) of Trinity United will punish them for that!  Yes he will!  Yes he will!