Will Republicans hold John McCain accountable?

Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan told his fellow Republicans at their Wisconsin's state convention that "the party needs to hold its members accountable and to stick to its principles."

Is Ryan, considered a candidate for the vice presidency, serious?

If he is, the Republican faithful could start by asking their presumptive presidential nominee, John McCain, why he:

• supports the high income Bush tax cuts which he voted against in 2001 because they were fiscally irresponsible?
• inserted $14.3 million into a 2003 defense bill for a land acquisition program that provided a windfall for an Arizona developer, SunCor Development, whose executives have given McCain $224,000 in campaign contributions?
• said he'd keep troops in Iraq for 100 years and now says they will be out by the end of his first term?
• sought and accepted the endorsement of the extremist Pastor John Hagee, who says God caused Hurricane Katrina to wipe out New Orleans because it had a gay pride parade the week before and who advocates invading Iran to hasten the coming of Armageddon?
• supports his wife, the daughter of a multimillionaire Anheuser Busch distributor, in refusing to release her tax returns?
• met with the Arizona developer, convicted racketeer and bailed-out savings and loan operator, Charles Keating, in 1987, a year after his wife and her father invested more than $350,000 in a strip mall developed by Mr. Keating that the New York Times has called a "sweetheart deal?"

Ryan and his Republican brethren have apparently given McCain an accountability pass when it comes to straight talk!



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