You say Tomatah and I say Tomato

Let's call the whole thing off!

John McCain misspoke and confused his African countries while talking to reporters on the Straight Talk Express today. This time, he was bailed out not by Joe Lieberman, but by his close aide Mark Salter. “How can we bring pressure on the government of Somalia?” McCain asked, which prompted Mark Salter to correct him. “Sudan,” Salter said. “Sudan,” McCain repeated. “There’s a realpolitik side of my view of the conduct of American foreign policy.”

Should we be concerned yet?

The president is an employee of the American people

And if an employee refuses to share his or his wife's tax returns when applying for the job, it arouses suspicions.

According to McCain's personal financial disclosure, Cindy McCain's investments include two mutual funds -- American Funds Europacific Growth fund and American Funds Capital World Growth and Income fund -- that are listed by the Sudan Divestment Task Force as targets for divestment.

"Those have been sold as of today," said McCain spokesman Brian Rogers. Both funds have holdings in Oil & Natural Gas Corp., an India-based company that does business in Sudan. The American Funds Capital World Growth & Income Fund also has holdings in Petrochina, a Chinese government-owned oil company with vast investments in Sudan.

Last year, in a speech on energy policy to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, McCain cited China's investments in Sudan as an example of regimes that survive off free-flowing petro dollars.

"The politics of oil impede the global progress of our values, and restrains governments from acting on the most basic impulses of human decency," he said. "There is only one reason China has opposed sanctions to pressure Sudan to stop the killing in Darfur: China needs Sudan's oil."

[snip]

But Cindy McCain files separate tax returns which she has not made public. Last week, she said she would never make her returns public even if her husband becomes president.

Later Wednesday, the Democratic National Committee reiterated its call for Cindy McCain to release her tax returns. "The fact the McCain family was holding Sudan-related investments even as John McCain was out on the campaign trail calling for sanctions is a reminder of why the American people expect and deserve full disclosure from their elected officials," said DNC spokesman Damien LaVera.

Cindy McCain is an heiress to a $100 million dollar estate, so it probably is a little hard to keep track of all the investments. But her husband is running for president. In fact he's been running for president for YEARS.

So you think the investments would have been rinsed through and cleaned up by now, wouldn't you?

Cindy, what else are you not telling us?

Blackwater training Sudanese

Just who are we training? And where? And what are they being trained to do? To whom? Why?

"NORFOLK, Va. — An official with the Sudanese government said he expects a North Carolina military training company to soon start working with security forces in the southern part of the country, The Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk reported Friday.

Blackwater USA, based in Moyock, North Carolina, could start training exercises within the next few weeks, Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth, head of mission in Washington for southern Sudan's regional government, told the newspaper.

State Department spokeswoman Nancy Beck acknowledged that Blackwater has a training proposal for the region but declined to comment on it. Blackwater would need a license from the State Department to offer security service overseas.

Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell told The Virginian-Pilot in a statement that the company has no contracts with Sudan and wouldn't confirm or deny negotiations. She didn't immediately return a phone call Friday from The Associated Press.

President Bush signed an executive order in October lifting sanctions from certain areas of Sudan, including southern parts of the country. The trade embargo was placed against the country in 1997 after the U.S. accused it of supporting international terrorism. Blackwater can train security forces in the south under the lifted embargo.

Blackwater has a 7,000-acre compound in Moyock where it has trained thousands of military and law enforcement personnel. It also works with international clients.

The company has more than $300 million in contracts with the State Department to guard diplomats and staff in Iraq.

Southern Sudan has been the site of flare-ups of a decades-long civil war that threaten a peace agreement. The conflict is separate from the violence in western Sudan's Darfur region, where mostly African ethnic tribes rebelled against the Arab central government. Violence in Darfur has claimed some 200,000 lives and forced 2.5 million people from their homes since 2003."

(corrected post title.)