1115.org

Remember when the Bush administration decided that the best way to deal with politically embarrassing data was simply to stop collecting it or disseminating it? The New Yorker drew attention to this in 2004:

In the past three years, the Bush Administration has had the Bureau of Labor Statistics stop reporting mass layoffs. It shortened the traditional span of budget projections from ten years to five, which allowed it to hide the long-term costs of its tax cuts. It commissioned a report on the aging of the baby boomers, then quashed it because it projected deficits as far as the eye could see. The Administration declined to offer cost estimates or to budget money for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Carpetbagger Report listed these instances last February:

* In March, the administration announced it would no longer produce the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation, which identifies which programs best assist low-income families, while also tracking health insurance coverage and child support.

* In 2005, after a government report showed an increase in terrorism around the world, the administration announced it would stop publishing its annual report on international terrorism.

* After the Bureau of Labor Statistics uncovered discouraging data about factory closings in the U.S., the administration announced it would stop publishing information about factory closings.

* When an annual report called “Budget Information for States” showed the federal government shortchanging states in the midst of fiscal crises, Bush’s Office of Management and Budget announced it was discontinuing the report, which some said was the only source for comprehensive data on state funding from the federal government.

* When Bush’s Department of Education found that charter schools were underperforming, the administration said it would sharply cut back on the information it collects about charter schools.

So when the McCain campaign finds itself getting into trouble due to politically embarrassing data, it does exactly what you would expect: it resorts to the tried-and-trusted strategeries of the Bush administration:

After getting zinged for having a number of domestic and foreign lobbyists advising the candidate, the McCain campaign recently introduced new campaign rules barring anyone currently employed as a lobbyist from serving on the campaign.

But they seem to have another new policy too: not telling anyone who the candidate’s advisers are.

Until a couple weeks ago, JohnMcCain.com included a page with a long list of its advisers.

But they took it down right after TPM asked about an economic adviser who was linked to Jack Abramoff’s lobbying scheme.

A McCain aide explained at the time that the list was outdated and did not reflect the new no-lobbyist rules that took effect in May.
[...]
It’s been about a month since the campaign’s new rules took effect, and the Web page we asked about is still blank.

When we asked today about the Web page that used to list advisers, the McCain aide told us they are “updating the page.”

Of course, this works only if you actually control the data in question:

As McCain was talking about his energy plans, a protester in the audience at Missouri State University yelled out that McCain had accepted a half million dollars this year from “big oil.”

“That’s more than any other senator!” he yelled. “How can you be trusted?”

After the event, McCain was asked in a news conference if that were true, though the questioner mistakenly quoted the protestor as saying McCain took in a half billion dollars.

“I don’t know what he’s talking about. So I can’t respond,” he said.

Indeed, McCain does lead all other senators, and all others who ran for president, in contributions from the oil and gas industry, according to the Center for Responsive Politics’ analysis of federal data in the 2007-08 election cycle. McCain collected $724,000 through May.

Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, took in $304,000 from the industry.

Speaking of “don’t know” and “talking”, have you noticed how, increasingly, McCain doesn’t seem to know what anyone is talking about, least of all himself? Recent examples would include:
— why he opposed the Webb-Hagel G.I. bill
— what “privatization of Social Security” means
— what the “cap-and-trade” proposals he claims to support mean
— how long it would take for offshore drilling to have an impact on oil production and prices, and how minuscule the impact would be