John McCain Gets in a Twitter Fight

Posted by Matt Corley, Think Progress at 5:31 AM on March 5, 2009.

When he was running for President, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) freely admitted that he was computer “illiterate” and that he relied on his aides to use a BlackBerry. But McCain recently increased his use of technology, using Twitter to mock what he thinks are the “the TOP TEN PORKIEST PROJECTS in the Omnibus Spending bill.”

Yesterday, his #1 porkiest project was the Oregon Solar Highway:

As Danny Glover points out at AirCongress, Rep. Earl Blumenauer, whose home state stands to benefit from the earmark, didn’t appreciate McCain’s sarcasm and he tweeted his displeasure:

The Oregon Solar Highway is “the nation’s first solar panel project on a major U.S. highway,” which seeks to use a row of solar panels about five feet wide and two football fields long to feed electricity directly into Portland General Electric’s systemwide grid. It is meant to “account for 28 percent of the energy needed to power lights that illuminate the highway’s sweeping interchange at night.”

When he was running for President, McCain declared that “no one in Arizona is against solar.” But, as The Washington Independent pointed out at the time, McCain’s voting record has not been supportive of solar energy. In May 2008, McCain trashed subsidies for solar power while simultaneously arguing for subsidies for the nuclear industry. (HT: Jonathan Singer)

Tagged as: mccain, john mccain, twitter, twitter fight

Matt Corley is a Research Associate for The Progress Report and ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress.