Woodstock May Have Saved Sen. McCain’s Life
by Sheldon Richman
John McCain scored a standing ovation at the last Republican presidential debate when he attacked Sen. Hillary Clinton for proposing – unsuccessfully – to spend a million taxpayer dollars on a museum commemorating the 1969 Woodstock festival, saying,
“Now, my friends, I wasn’t there. I’m sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event. I was tied up at the time. But the fact is, my friends, no one can be president of the United States that supports projects such as these.”
It would be easy to criticize McCain for politically exploiting his five-and-half years of suffering as a captive of the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam war. But there’s a more important point to be made.
Had McCain simply attacked Clinton’s attempt at pork-barrel spending – the museum is set to open next year in Bethel, New York – that would have been fine (although McCain, too, has some pork-barreling on his record). Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to support any kind of museum.