More McCain mess-ups

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McCain is doing damage control after an offensive comment was made yesterday by his top advisor, Charlie Black. Black said that a terrorist attack in the U.S. would help their campaign, noting that Benazir Bhutto's assassination probably did:

A top adviser to John McCain said another terrorist attack on U.S. soil would be a "big advantage" for the Republican presidential candidate, drawing a sharp rebuke Monday from both the presumed GOP nominee and Democrat Barack Obama.

Charlie Black, already in the spotlight for his past lobbying work, is quoted in the upcoming July 7 edition of Fortune magazine as saying such an attack "certainly would be a big advantage to him." Black said Monday he regretted the comment.

Black is also quoted as saying the "unfortunate event" of the assassination of former Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto in December 2007 "helped us."

And then somehow McCain found himself being confronted by a member of one of his own hand-picked expert panels. McCain made the mistake of calling for offshore drilling and then holding a town hall meeting on energy in Santa Barbara a few days later. Santa Barbara is the site of one of the worst oil spills in U.S. history.

The panel member who disagreed with McCain is Michael Feeney, executive director of the Santa Barbara land trust. In his words:

Feeney also took issue with McCain's controversial proposal to lift the moratorium on offshore oil exploration: "It makes me nervous to think about those who are proposing to drain America's offshore oil and gas reserves as quickly as possible in the hopes of driving down the price of gasoline, because I think when you look at the good sources of information, were we to open up the California coast or the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, it would be 12, 15, maybe 20 years before those resources came online and got to full productions."

Adding that some research shows that drilling in ANWR would only "reduce our dependence on foreign oil from 70% to 67%," Feeney added, "I'm not sure most Americans would think that's really worth the price of admission."

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