McCain loses ground with scientists over planetarium remark

[onager]

If there's one rule in election-year politics, it's this: Don't mess with the science crowd. OK, labor unions and the NRA matter too, but John McCain may want to brush up on his stars and planets after Tuesday night's debate.

In the debate, McCain portrayed Barack Obama as an excessive spender, and he punctuated his attack (twice) with this example:

" voted for nearly a billion dollars in pork barrel earmark projects, including, by the way, $3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Illinois. My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?"

Turns out, a lot of people think we do...

Bonehead was talking about the Adler Planetarium. And it DID NOT EVEN get the projector.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_pl78

[ThatsMyBarack]

1. Serves ya right, McDumbass!

I used to go to the Adler Planetarium all the time when I was a kid. It was a dreadful shock to my system to hear McDumbass diss it. :grr:

[yardwork]

2. One of those comments said that 10 million children have visited the Adler.

That's a lot of fail.

[LisaM]

3. Did he even have any ground with scientists?

The reckless disregard Republicans have for science is frightening.

[Lifetimedem]

4. I had a feeling there would be a blowback on this one

It seemed a dumb "earmark' to point out when Science education is key to our country...so I figured teachers. parents or scientists would want the last word..

I do not like silly earmarks..but who decides what is silly.. a University grant to a science dept to study the mating habits of frogs could end up making some important finding... and interesting students in either the environment or anatomy .

A fish farm getting a grant to study something could improve our food supply. We certainly do need earmarks for roads and bridges, even if they get named after a senator..

The process has become political...but that does not mean it should be eliminated...just changed