http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/us/polit...agewanted=print February 21, 2008 The Long Run For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk By JIM RUTENBERG, MARILYN W. THOMPSON, DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK and STEPHEN LABATON This article is by Jim Rutenberg, Marilyn W. Thompson, David D. Kirkpatrick and Stephen Labaton. WASHINGTON �" Early in Senator John McCain’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers. A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself �" instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity. When news organizations reported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist’s client, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement. Mr. McCain, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, both say they never had a romantic relationship. But to his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity. It had been just a decade since an official favor for a friend with regulatory problems had nearly ended Mr. McCain’s political career by ensnaring him in the Keating Five scandal. In the years that followed, he reinvented himself as the scourge of special interests, a crusader for stricter ethics and campaign finance rules, a man of honor chastened by a brush with shame. But the concerns about Mr. McCain’s relationship with Ms. Iseman underscored an enduring paradox of his post-Keating career. Even as he has vowed to hold himself to the highest ethical standards, his confidence in his own integrity has sometimes seemed to blind him to potentially embarrassing conflicts of interest. Mr. McCain promised, for example, never to fly directly from Washington to Phoenix, his hometown, to avoid the impression of self-interest because he sponsored a law that opened the route nearly a decade ago. But like other lawmakers, he often flew on the corporate jets of business executives seeking his support, including the media moguls Rupert Murdoch, Michael R. Bloomberg and Lowell W. Paxson, Ms. Iseman’s client. (Last year he voted to end the practice.) Mr. McCain helped found a nonprofit group to promote his personal battle for tighter campaign finance rules. But he later resigned as its chairman after news reports disclosed that the group was tapping the same kinds of unlimited corporate contributions he opposed, including those from companies seeking his favor. He has criticized the cozy ties between lawmakers and lobbyists, but is relying on corporate lobbyists to donate their time running his presidential race and recently hired a lobbyist to run his Senate office. “He is essentially an honorable person,” said William P. Cheshire, a friend of Mr. McCain who as editorial page editor of The Arizona Republic defended him during the Keating Five scandal. “But he can be imprudent.” Mr. Cheshire added, “That imprudence or recklessness may be part of why he was not more astute about the risks he was running with this shady operator,” Charles Keating, whose ties to Mr. McCain and four other lawmakers tainted their reputations in the savings and loan debacle. During his current campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, Mr. McCain has played down his attacks on the corrupting power of money in politics, aware that the stricter regulations he championed are unpopular in his party. When the Senate overhauled lobbying and ethics rules last year, Mr. McCain stayed in the background. With his nomination this year all but certain, though, he is reminding voters again of his record of reform. His campaign has already begun comparing his credentials with those of Senator Barack Obama, a Democratic contender who has made lobbying and ethics rules a centerpiece of his own pitch to voters. “I would very much like to think that I have never been a man whose favor can be bought,” Mr. McCain wrote about his Keating experience in his 2002 memoir, “Worth the Fighting For.” “From my earliest youth, I would have considered such a reputation to be the most shameful ignominy imaginable. Yet that is exactly how millions of Americans viewed me for a time, a time that I will forever consider one of the worst experiences of my life.” A drive to expunge the stain on his reputation in time turned into a zeal to cleanse Washington as well. The episode taught him that “questions of honor are raised as much by appearances as by reality in politics,” he wrote, “and because they incite public distrust they need to be addressed no less directly than we would address evidence of expressly illegal corruption.” A Formative Scandal Mr. McCain started his career like many other aspiring politicians, eagerly courting the wealthy and powerful. A Vietnam war hero and Senate liaison for the Navy, he arrived in Arizona in 1980 after his second marriage, to Cindy Hensley, the heiress to a beer fortune there. He quickly started looking for a Congressional district where he could run. Mr. Keating, a Phoenix financier and real estate developer, became an early sponsor and, soon, a friend. He was a man of great confidence and daring, Mr. McCain recalled in his memoir. “People like that appeal to me,” he continued. “I have sometimes forgotten that wisdom and a strong sense of public responsibility are much more admirable qualities.” During Mr. McCain’s four years in the House, Mr. Keating, his family and his business associates contributed heavily to his political campaigns. The banker gave Mr. McCain free rides on his private jet, a violation of Congressional ethics rules (he later said it was an oversight and paid for the trips). They vacationed together in the Bahamas. And in 1986, the year Mr. McCain was elected to the Senate, his wife joined Mr. Keating in investing in an Arizona shopping mall. Mr. Keating had taken over the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association and used its federally insured deposits to gamble on risky real estate and other investments. He pressed Mr. McCain and other lawmakers to help hold back federal banking regulators. For years, Mr. McCain complied. At Mr. Keating’s request, he wrote several letters to regulators, introduced legislation and helped secure the nomination of a Keating associate to a banking regulatory board. By early 1987, though, the thrift was careering toward disaster. Mr. McCain agreed to join several senators, eventually known as the Keating Five, for two private meetings with regulators to urge them to ease up. “Why didn’t I fully grasp the unusual appearance of such a meeting?” Mr. McCain later lamented in his memoir. When Lincoln went bankrupt in 1989 �" one of the biggest collapses of the savings and loan crisis, costing taxpayers $3.4 billion �" the Keating Five became infamous. The scandal sent Mr. Keating to prison and ended the careers of three senators, who were censured in 1991 for intervening. Mr. McCain, who had been a less aggressive advocate for Mr. Keating than the others, was reprimanded only for “poor judgment” and was re-elected the next year. Some people involved think Mr. McCain got off too lightly. William Black, one of the banking regulators the senator met with, argued that Mrs. McCain’s investment with Mr. Keating created an obvious conflict of interest for her husband. (Mr. McCain had said a prenuptial agreement divided the couple’s assets.) He should not be able to “put this behind him,” Mr. Black said. “It sullied his integrity.” Mr. McCain has since described the episode as a unique humiliation. “If I do not repress the memory, its recollection still provokes a vague but real feeling that I had lost something very important,” he wrote in his memoir. “I still wince thinking about it.” A New Chosen Cause After the Republican takeover of the Senate in 1994, Mr. McCain decided to try to put some of the lessons he had learned into law. He started by attacking earmarks, the pet projects that individual lawmakers could insert anonymously into the fine print of giant spending bills, a recipe for corruption. But he quickly moved on to other targets, most notably political fund-raising. Mr. McCain earned the lasting animosity of many conservatives, who argue that his push for fund-raising restrictions trampled free speech, and of many of his Senate colleagues, who bristled that he was preaching to them so soon after his own repentance. In debates, his party’s leaders challenged him to name a single senator he considered corrupt (he refused). “We used to joke that each of us was the only one eating alone in our caucus,” said Senator Russ Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, who became Mr. McCain’s partner on campaign finance efforts. Mr. McCain appeared motivated less by the usual ideas about good governance than by a more visceral disapproval of the gifts, meals and money that influence seekers shower on lawmakers, Mr. Feingold said. “It had to do with his sense of honor,” he said. “He saw this stuff as cheating.” Mr. McCain made loosening the grip of special interests the central cause of his 2000 presidential campaign, inviting scrutiny of his own ethics. His Republican rival, George W. Bush, accused him of “double talk” for soliciting campaign contributions from companies with interests that came before the powerful Senate commerce committee, of which Mr. McCain was chairman. Mr. Bush’s allies called Mr. McCain “sanctimonious.” At one point, his campaign invited scores of lobbyists to a fund-raiser at the Willard Hotel in Washington. While Bush supporters stood mocking outside, the McCain team tried to defend his integrity by handing the lobbyists buttons reading “ McCain voted against my bill.” Mr. McCain himself skipped the event, an act he later called “cowardly.” By 2002, he had succeeded in passing the McCain-Feingold Act, which transformed American politics by banning “soft money,” the unlimited donations from corporations, unions and the rich that were funneled through the two political parties to get around previous laws. One of his efforts, though, seemed self-contradictory. In 2001, he helped found the nonprofit Reform Institute to promote his cause and, in the process, his career. It collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in unlimited donations from companies that lobbied the Senate commerce committee. Mr. McCain initially said he saw no problems with the financing, but he severed his ties to the institute in 2005, complaining of “bad publicity” after news reports of the arrangement. Like other presidential candidates, he has relied on lobbyists to run his campaigns. Since a cash crunch last summer, several of them �" including his campaign manager, Rick Davis, who represented companies before Mr. McCain’s Senate panel �" have been working without pay, a gift that could be worth tens of thousands of dollars. In recent weeks, Mr. McCain has hired another lobbyist, Mark Buse, to run his Senate office. In his case, it was a round trip through the revolving door: Mr. Buse had directed Mr. McCain’s committee staff for seven years before leaving in 2001 to lobby for telecommunications companies. Mr. McCain’s friends dismiss questions about his ties to lobbyists, arguing that he has too much integrity to let such personal connections influence him. “Unless he gives you special treatment or takes legislative action against his own views, I don’t think his personal and social relationships matter,” said Charles Black, a friend and campaign adviser who has previously lobbied the senator for aviation, broadcasting and tobacco concerns. Concerns in a Campaign Mr. McCain’s confidence in his ability to distinguish personal friendships from compromising connections was at the center of questions advisers raised about Ms. Iseman. The lobbyist, a partner at the firm Alcalde & Fay, represented telecommunications companies for whom Mr. McCain’s commerce committee was pivotal. Her clients contributed tens of thousands of dollars to his campaigns. Mr. Black said Mr. McCain and Ms. Iseman were friends and nothing more. But in 1999 she began showing up so frequently in his offices and at campaign events that staff members took notice. One recalled asking, “Why is she always around?” That February, Mr. McCain and Ms. Iseman attended a small fund-raising dinner with several clients at the Miami-area home of a cruise-line executive and then flew back to Washington along with a campaign aide on the corporate jet of one of her clients, Paxson Communications. By then, according to two former McCain associates, some of the senator’s advisers had grown so concerned that the relationship had become romantic that they took steps to intervene. A former campaign adviser described being instructed to keep Ms. Iseman away from the senator at public events, while a Senate aide recalled plans to limit Ms. Iseman’s access to his offices. In interviews, the two former associates said they joined in a series of confrontations with Mr. McCain, warning him that he was risking his campaign and career. Both said Mr. McCain acknowledged behaving inappropriately and pledged to keep his distance from Ms. Iseman. The two associates, who said they had become disillusioned with the senator, spoke independently of each other and provided details that were corroborated by others. Separately, a top McCain aide met with Ms. Iseman at Union Station in Washington to ask her to stay away from the senator. John Weaver, a former top strategist and now an informal campaign adviser, said in an e-mail message that he arranged the meeting after “a discussion among the campaign leadership” about her. “Our political messaging during that time period centered around taking on the special interests and placing the nation’s interests before either personal or special interest,” Mr. Weaver continued. “Ms. Iseman’s involvement in the campaign, it was felt by us, could undermine that effort.” Mr. Weaver added that the brief conversation was only about “her conduct and what she allegedly had told people, which made its way back to us.” He declined to elaborate. It is not clear what effect the warnings had; the associates said their concerns receded in the heat of the campaign. Ms. Iseman acknowledged meeting with Mr. Weaver, but disputed his account. “I never discussed with him alleged things I had ‘told people,’ that had made their way ‘back to’ him,” she wrote in an e-mail message. She said she never received special treatment from Mr. McCain’s office. Mr. McCain said that the relationship was not romantic and that he never showed favoritism to Ms. Iseman or her clients. “I have never betrayed the public trust by doing anything like that,” he said. He made the statements in a call to Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, to complain about the paper’s inquiries. The senator declined repeated interview requests, beginning in December. He also would not comment about the assertions that he had been confronted about Ms. Iseman, Mr. Black said Wednesday. Mr. Davis and Mark Salter, Mr. McCain’s top strategists in both of his presidential campaigns, disputed accounts from the former associates and aides and said they did not discuss Ms. Iseman with the senator or colleagues. “I never had any good reason to think that the relationship was anything other than professional, a friendly professional relationship,” Mr. Salter said in an interview. He and Mr. Davis also said Mr. McCain had frequently denied requests from Ms. Iseman and the companies she represented. In 2006, Mr. McCain sought to break up cable subscription packages, which some of her clients opposed. And his proposals for satellite distribution of local television programs fell short of her clients’ hopes. The McCain aides said the senator sided with Ms. Iseman’s clients only when their positions hewed to his principles A champion of deregulation, Mr. McCain wrote letters in 1998 and 1999 to the Federal Communications Commission urging it to uphold marketing agreements allowing a television company to control two stations in the same city, a crucial issue for Glencairn Ltd., one of Ms. Iseman’s clients. He introduced a bill to create tax incentives for minority ownership of stations; Ms. Iseman represented several businesses seeking such a program. And he twice tried to advance legislation that would permit a company to control television stations in overlapping markets, an important issue for Paxson. In late 1999, Ms. Iseman asked Mr. McCain’s staff to send a letter to the commission to help Paxson, now Ion Media Networks, on another matter. Mr. Paxson was impatient for F.C.C. approval of a television deal, and Ms. Iseman acknowledged in an e-mail message to The Times that she had sent to Mr. McCain’s staff information for drafting a letter urging a swift decision. Mr. McCain complied. He sent two letters to the commission, drawing a rare rebuke for interference from its chairman. In an embarrassing turn for the campaign, news reports invoked the Keating scandal, once again raising questions about intervening for a patron. Mr. McCain’s aides released all of his letters to the F.C.C. to dispel accusations of favoritism, and aides said the campaign had properly accounted for four trips on the Paxson plane. But the campaign did not report the flight with Ms. Iseman. Mr. McCain’s advisers say he was not required to disclose the flight, but ethics lawyers dispute that. Recalling the Paxson episode in his memoir, Mr. McCain said he was merely trying to push along a slow-moving bureaucracy, but added that he was not surprised by the criticism given his history. “Any hint that I might have acted to reward a supporter,” he wrote, “would be taken as an egregious act of hypocrisy.” Statement by McCain Mr. McCain’s presidential campaign issued the following statement Wednesday night: “It is a shame that The New York Times has lowered its standards to engage in a hit-and-run smear campaign. John McCain has a 24-year record of serving our country with honor and integrity. He has never violated the public trust, never done favors for special interests or lobbyists, and he will not allow a smear campaign to distract from the issues at stake in this election. “Americans are sick and tired of this kind of gutter politics, and there is nothing in this story to suggest that John McCain has ever violated the principles that have guided his career.” Barclay Walsh and Kitty Bennett contributed research.
Very convienent. Rudy endorses McCain, McCain become frontrunner, liberal newspaper runs this article. Denny looks like your analysis of the media's agenda against McCain and the Republicans is dead on.
Interestingly enough... the lawyer who's handling this mess for McCain is none other than Bob Bennett. That'd be Bill Bennett's brother, and the lawyer who represented Clinton in his impeachment trial. In other words, Bennett is a Democrat, and HE thinks it's a hit piece.
I think we can all agree that this is a blantant hit job by a left-wing organization. The New York Times, (as well as certain journalists and/or networks that will not be mentioned here) has become nothing more than the hired hitmen of journalism for the left. This is what I find most interesting. Something that's not mentioned in CNN's article (go figure) <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>According to Black, the Times only went with the story now because The New Republic was set to run a piece next Monday about internal dissensions at the paper over whether to run the long-held article. After the TNR reporter, Gabriel Sherman, began making phone calls to the Times and others outside the paper, they decided to publish, Black alleged. The Times called the McCain campaign this afternoon to give them notice that they were going with the story and asked campaign officials if they wanted to say anything more. “We said we have nothing else to say unless you’ve got new questions. And they didn’t,” Black said. In a blog posting late Wednesday, TNR senior editor Noam Scheiber wrote: “The McCain campaign is apparently blaming TNR for forcing the Times' hand on this story. We can't yet confirm that. But we can say this: TNR correspondent Gabe Sherman is working on a piece about the Times' foot-dragging on the McCain story, and the back-and-forth within the paper about whether to publish it. Gabe's story will be online tomorrow.”</div> Link This story is nothing new to readers of the Drudge report. But for people who don't read it, the New York Times was saving this story for when it would hit McCain the hardest. I honestly believe that if TNR had not gotten involved in this, the Times would have waited several months, probably until after the Republican national convention, to print this story to hurt McCain even more. This won't do any damage, actually it will have the opposite effect. Suddendly, conservatives like Sean Hannity are rallying behind the Senator. Conservatives who have criticized the senator before will love the fact it's him who's taking on the NYT. If anything, this will help the Senator, not hurt him.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Limbaugh and other conservative commentators rushed to defend McCain on Thursday against a potentially damaging article in The New York Times, embracing a maverick they have often attacked. "You're surprised that Page Six-type gossip is on the front page of The New York Times?" Limbaugh asked as he began his radio show. "Where have you been? How in the world can anybody be surprised?" Limbaugh said earlier in an e-mail to Politico that the Times article about McCain’s relationship with a female lobbyist was a clear case of "the drive-by media ... trying to take him out."</div> <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Laura Ingraham, another influential conservative radio host, asserted that the Times waited until McCain was on the brink of the Republican presidential nomination and now is seeking to "contaminate" him with an article that she calls "absurd" and "ridiculous." CBN.org, the website of the Christian Broadcasting Network, calls an attack by the Times "a conservative badge of honor."</div> Link
Denny, why is McCain walking away clean from this? He lied, and Paxson even said he met McCain with the infamous lobbyist.
From MSNBC/CNN/etc. over past 3 days: ~Both times and Washington Post say aides , including Weaver, told both papers that some intervention was made to protect him from allegations of female lobbyist. He apparently admitted to acting somewhat inappropriate. ~McCain camp is run by lobbyists, fact. ~Chief advisor lobbies (for GM, AT&T, etc.) from his bus. ~Washington post on Friday talked about his Lobbyist connections. ~Lied about deposition of course. **** I am getting pissed Denny, I want some answers. Much of his candidacy is based on his unimpeachable character. His credibility is on the line.
There's no smoking gun. The letter from McCain only asked for action (e.g. a vote) by his committee, not particularly in favor of any lobbyist. Unions aren't any better than lobbyists, FWIW. Obama's got a few of those working on his behalf.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Feb 25 2008, 09:45 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>There's no smoking gun.</div> I don't know about that, Denny. <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>McCain?€™s assertion in response to the Times article -- that during his quarter-century congressional career, he ?€œhas never violated the public trust, never done favors for special interests or lobbyists?€? -- just isn?€™t true. For instance, the Times story recalled how McCain helped one of his early financial backers, wheeler-dealer Charles Keating, frustrate oversight from federal banking regulators who were examining Keating?€™s Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. At Keating's urging, McCain wrote letters, introduced bills and pushed a Keating associate for a job on a banking regulatory board. In 1987, McCain joined several other senators in two private meetings with federal banking regulators on Keating?€™s behalf. Two years later, Lincoln collapsed, costing the U.S. taxpayers $3.4 billion. Keating eventually went to prison and three other senators from the so-called Keating Five saw their political careers ruined. McCain drew a Senate reprimand for his involvement and later lamented his faulty judgment. ?€œWhy didn?€™t I fully grasp the unusual appearance of such a meeting??€? he wrote in his 2002 memoir, Worth the Fighting For. But some people close to the case thought McCain got off too easy. Not only was McCain taking donations from Keating and his business circle, getting free rides on Keating?€™s corporate jet and enjoying joint vacations in the Bahamas ?€“ McCain?€™s second wife, the beer fortune heiress Cindy Hensley, had invested with Keating in an Arizona shopping mall. In the years that followed, however, McCain not only got out from under the shadow of the Keating Five scandal but found a silver lining in the cloud, transforming the case into a lessons-learned chapter of his personal narrative. McCain, as born-again reformer, soon was winning over the Washington press corps with his sponsorship of ethics legislation, like the McCain-Feingold bill limiting ?€œsoft money?€? contributions to the political parties. However, there was still the other side of John McCain as he wielded enormous power from his position as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, which helped him solicit campaign donations from corporations doing business before the panel. Pressure on the FCC The Times story suggested that McCain did favors on behalf of Iseman?€™s lobbying clients, including two letters that McCain wrote in 1999 to the Federal Communications Commission demanding that it act on a long-delayed request by Iseman?€™s client, Florida-based Paxson Communications, to buy a Pittsburgh television station. In the furious counter-offensive against the Times article, McCain?€™s campaign issued a point-by-point denial, calling those letters routine correspondence that were handled by staff without McCain meeting either with Paxson or anyone from Iseman?€™s firm, Alcalde & Fay. "No representative of Paxson or Alcalde & Fay personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC," his campaign said. But that turned out not to be true. Newsweek?€™s investigative reporter Michael Isikoff dug up a sworn deposition from Sept. 25, 2002, in which McCain himself declared that ?€œI was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue. ?€? He wanted their [the FCC?€™s] approval very bad for purposes of his business. I believe that Mr. Paxson had a legitimate complaint.?€? Though McCain claimed not to recall whether he had spoken with Paxson?€™s lobbyist [presumably a reference to Iseman], he added, ?€œI?€™m sure I spoke to [Paxson],?€? according to the deposition. [See Newsweek?€™s Web posting, Feb. 22, 2008] McCain?€™s letters to the FCC, which Chairman William Kennard criticized as ?€œhighly unusual,?€? came in the same period when Paxson?€™s company was ferrying McCain to political events aboard its corporate jet and donating $20,000 to his campaign. After the Feb. 21 Times article appeared, McCain?€™s spokesmen confirmed that Iseman accompanied McCain on at least one of those flights from Florida to Washington, though McCain said in the 2002 deposition that ?€œI do not recall?€? if Paxson?€™s lobbyist was onboard. First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams, who conducted the deposition in connection with a challenge to the McCain-Feingold law, asked McCain if the benefits that he received from Paxson created ?€œat least an appearance of corruption here??€? ?€œAbsolutely,?€? McCain answered. ?€œI believe that there could possibly be an appearance of corruption because this system has tainted all of us.?€? Sticking to the Story When Newsweek went to McCain?€™s 2008 campaign with the seeming contradictions between the deposition and the denial of the Times article, McCain?€™s people stuck to their story that that the senator had never discussed the FCC issue with Paxson or his lobbyist. ?€œWe do not think there is a contradiction here,?€? campaign spokeswoman Ann Begeman told Newsweek. ?€œIt appears that Senator McCain, when speaking of being contacted by Paxson, was speaking in shorthand of his staff being contacted by representatives of Paxson. Senator McCain does not recall being asked directly by Paxson or any representative of him or by Alcalde & Fay to contact the FCC regarding the Pittsburgh license transaction.?€? That new denial, however, soon crumbled when the Washington Post interviewed Paxson, who said he had talked with McCain in his Washington office several weeks before McCain sent the letters to the FCC. The broadcast executive also believed that Iseman had helped arrange the meeting and likely was in attendance. ?€œWas Vicki there? Probably,?€? Paxson said. [Washington Post, Feb. 23, 2008] A day earlier, the Post also noted the discrepancy between a central tenet of McCain?€™s campaign ?€“ his denunciation of lobbyists and the corrupt revolving-door ways of Washington ?€“ and his reliance on lobbyists for his congressional work and his campaign. ?€œWhen McCain huddled with his closest advisers at his rustic Arizona cabin last weekend to map out his presidential campaign, virtually every one was part of the Washington lobbying culture he has long decried,?€? the Post reported on Feb. 22. In its article about McCain and Iseman, the New York Times also noted that in 2001, McCain helped found a non-profit organization called the Reform Institute supposedly to advance McCain?€™s signature cause of political ethics. But the institute drew much of its funding from companies trying to ingratiate themselves with McCain and his Commerce Committee. Though denying any impropriety, McCain severed his ties to the Reform Institute in 2005 because of the ?€œbad publicity.?€? So, one of the pressing questions for American voters as they look toward the formal nomination of McCain as the Republican presidential candidate is whether he is a phony who?€™s long been protected by his gilded reputation or whether he suffers from severe ?€“ or at least convenient ?€“ memory loss. McCain also may have learned some tricks from watching his former rival, George W. Bush, whose tendency to lie grew increasingly brazen after 9/11. As Commander in Chief for a nation at war, Bush brushed aside questions about his statements not squaring with the facts: From his insistence that waterboarding is not torture to Saddam Hussein not letting the UN inspectors in. [See, for instance, Consortiumnews.com?€™s ?€œBush?€™s Favorite Lie.?€?] Since McCain as Commander in Chief would ensure that the United States remains at war for the foreseeable future, he might expect a Bush-like pass when his words diverge almost 180 degrees from the facts. Endless war will justify endless lies. Or maybe he just believes his own press clippings ?€“ that he is such a straight-talker that whatever comes out of his mouth must be the truth.</div> http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/022308.html McCain is getting thrashed in this, and it doesn't look like any "hit job". This looks ridiculous.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (huevonkiller @ Feb 25 2008, 06:25 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Denny, why is McCain walking away clean from this? He lied, and Paxson even said he met McCain with the infamous lobbyist.</div> Is he walking away clean? Tho the Post piece is a hit job. It's well known he was involved in the Keating 5 scandal, and he's apologized and nobody's had a problem with him since. And the Post reiterates what I wrote about smoking gun: including two letters that McCain wrote in 1999 to the Federal Communications Commission demanding that it act on a long-delayed request by Iseman�€™s client, Florida-based Paxson Communications, to buy a Pittsburgh television station. "Act on" - not "Approve"
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Feb 25 2008, 09:59 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (huevonkiller @ Feb 25 2008, 06:25 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Denny, why is McCain walking away clean from this? He lied, and Paxson even said he met McCain with the infamous lobbyist.</div> Is he walking away clean? Tho the Post piece is a hit job. It's well known he was involved in the Keating 5 scandal, and he's apologized and nobody's had a problem with him since. And the Post reiterates what I wrote about smoking gun: including two letters that McCain wrote in 1999 to the Federal Communications Commission demanding that it act on a long-delayed request by Iseman�€™s client, Florida-based Paxson Communications, to buy a Pittsburgh television station. "Act on" - not "Approve" </div> I didn't see a point-by-point rebuttal. Anyway, the letters were "highly unusual". That's not all that's troubling either. He's also essentially "breaking" the law recently, correct? He's trying to back out of Public Financing which saved his ass. I'm glad he's not walking away clean then.
Keating 5 was 1987. It's been hashed and rehashed to death. McCain's record since then speaks for itself, and he's basically been forgiven by most people. Drudging up shit from 1987 is the "hit" in hit piece. The negative stuff thrown at McCain seems to be helping him. http://rasmussenreports.com/public_content..._college_update In terms of the national popular vote, John McCain now holds a very narrow lead over both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. But Obama's got the momentum! (LOL)
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Feb 25 2008, 11:14 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Keating 5 was 1987. It's been hashed and rehashed to death. McCain's record since then speaks for itself, and he's basically been forgiven by most people. Drudging up shit from 1987 is the "hit" in hit piece. The negative stuff thrown at McCain seems to be helping him. http://rasmussenreports.com/public_content..._college_update In terms of the national popular vote, John McCain now holds a very narrow lead over both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. But Obama's got the momentum! (LOL)</div> Obviously the NY times article is perceived as mostly false, when I would disagree with this. I also think Democratic turnout will be higher anyway. Denny, I didn't just bring up Keaton did I? And I bow down to your insurmountable lead in Ohio... Oh no wait I don't. Obama does have Momentum, he has a double digit lead on Clinton nation-wide, he was almost dead-locked at the start of the month. Now the general election appears to be a different beast. McCain still looks like a punk, <u>LOL</u> at his wack comments in his rebuttal. I bet Obama raises more money too.
LOL I want Obama to win (of the two), myself. I'm just not going to suspend reality to make him out to be doing better than he is. He's destroying Hillary, which is great. He's losing ground in the general against McCain, which is how it is. He had a 5 point lead, or more, nationwide, now he's behind McCain. I don't think any lead under 25 points is insurmountable in the short term, and it's one hell of a hole in the long term. It isn't that way, though, nor is it looking like a trend in that direction. BTW, Howard Kurtz slammed the NYT article on TV today. He is the media guy for the Washington Post, and hosts CNN's "Reliable Sources" (show about the media) on CNN. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...2201858_pf.html <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>If the Times couldn't make the case that McCain and Iseman had an intimate relationship -- and both have denied it -- was it fair to raise the issue? If a crucial allegation was that McCain aides, in 1999 and 2000, told the senator they were worried that the relationship appeared inappropriate and warned Iseman to stay away from their boss, is that worthy of front-page display? If the relevance rests on McCain having written letters to federal regulators nearly a decade ago that would have benefited Iseman's telecommunications clients, is that less newsworthy because it was reported at the time? ... The story quoted one on-the-record source, former McCain strategist John Weaver, who said he had arranged a 1999 meeting between a top campaign aide and Iseman at Union Station at which she was asked to stay away from the senator. Weaver left McCain's campaign last summer during a near-implosion over staffing and fundraising. The key unnamed sources are described as two former McCain associates, interviewed independently, who "said they had become disillusioned with the senator." But that information does not appear until the article's 41st paragraph. ... Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum objects to "the transparent thinness of the reporting. If the Times has evidence that McCain had an affair, they should come out with it. If they have evidence that he showed improper favoritism toward a lobbyist, they should come out with that, too. The fact that they do neither -- most of the article rehashes old stories -- must mean they don't have anything at all; perhaps they are hoping the blogosphere will produce it. The only 'evidence' comes from two anonymous aides who claim they told Iseman to buzz off and stop distracting their boss -- behavior which strikes me as quite normal and rather admirable. Sounds like they were doing their job. "Thanks to lack of evidence, the article reads not like an expos¿ but like an elaborate and extended piece of insinuation. Surely this must will damage the New York Times more than John McCain: Who will believe their reporting on him now?"</div> &c The Ombudsman of the NYT slammed the NYT article - his own paper. http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hiZBfI...5ERtItxUcQ8JwGw <div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>New York Times ombudsman slams article on McCain 2 days ago WASHINGTON, Feb 23, 2008 (AFP) — The New York Times' ombudsman strongly criticized the newspaper's insinuation this week that White House hopeful John McCain had a tryst with a female lobbyist 31 years his junior, nearly 10 years ago. "The newspaper found itself in the uncomfortable position of being the story as much as publishing the story, in large part because, although it raised one of the most toxic subjects in politics -- sex -- it offered readers no proof that McCain and (Vicki) Iseman had a romance," public editor Clark Hoyte wrote in the Times' online edition. In an article signed by four reporters that raised more backlash against the daily than the candidate, the Times Thursday cited unnamed McCain advisers who, "convinced the relationship had become romantic," had asked Iseman to keep away from the senator. "The article was notable for what it did not say," wrote Hoyte in his column to be published Sunday. "It did not say what convinced the advisers that there was a romance. "It did not make clear what McCain was admitting when he acknowledged behaving inappropriately -- an affair or just an association with a lobbyist that could look bad," he said of alleged comments McCain made to his advisers. Hoyt also criticized Times executive editor Bill Keller's explanation that the article's main thrust was not the alleged affair but the political favors the Republican bestowed on a lobbyist, which Hoyt said "ignored the scarlet elephant in the room." "A newspaper cannot begin a story about the all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee with the suggestion of an extramarital affair with an attractive lobbyist 31 years his junior and expect readers to focus on anything other than what most of them did. ... The stakes are just too big." "The pity of it is that, without the sex, the Times was on to a good story," Hoyt added, recalling that McCain, 71, had been reprimanded in the past for cozying up to lobbyists -- the influence of money in politics is a recurring issue in Congress. On Saturday, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Newsweek all said McCain's denials about the Times' article contradicted earlier statements of his that he did have contacts with two business clients of Iseman, 40. Meanwhile, several conservative media commentators who up to now had been critical of McCain rallied to his side against The New York Times, which they consider a bastion of liberal, left-wing America.</div>
That's funny Denny, I never stated I agreed with the "radical" NYT claims. What is your point? What reality am I suspending? Voter turnout has been more pathetic in the GOP race, and these leads can flip-flop at any moment. If I had to bet, I'd say Obama still leads due to the average poll and intangibles that I've discussed in the past. Further, I was not referring to the sex scandal, I could care less what that old punk did. His character does not look as solid, once the general public gets past the affair allegations they will see how unusual McCain has behaved recently.
Now you have me and Kurtz saying the same thing. This stuff is old news, it was widely reported at the time, and it's had no bearing on McCain's popularity. His actions - McCain/Feingold, for example - speak for themselves. The more mudslinging there is against him, the higher he's rising in the polls. This is true of Obama - Hillary has turned off voters for good over doing that kind of stuff. McCain is destroying Huckabee - even moreso than Obama is beating Clinton. There's a more fair comparison. That republicans aren't coming out in big numbers while their nominee is set isn't that meaningful. Like I said, he was given up for dead late last year, and now he's AHEAD of Obama in the recent polls - that's MOMENTUM. You can look at polls from last month and ignore the current ones, if you are into being ill informed.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Feb 26 2008, 02:04 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Now you have me and Kurtz saying the same thing. This stuff is old news, it was widely reported at the time, and it's had no bearing on McCain's popularity. His actions - McCain/Feingold, for example - speak for themselves. The more mudslinging there is against him, the higher he's rising in the polls. This is true of Obama - Hillary has turned off voters for good over doing that kind of stuff. McCain is destroying Huckabee - even moreso than Obama is beating Clinton. There's a more fair comparison. That republicans aren't coming out in big numbers while their nominee is set isn't that meaningful. Like I said, he was given up for dead late last year, and now he's AHEAD of Obama in the recent polls - that's MOMENTUM. You can look at polls from last month and ignore the current ones, if you are into being ill informed.</div> ~Hillary was always the Front runner for the Nomination, Huckawas doesn't even compare as an opponent, you've said it yourself. The Hillary/Billary machine has collected far more money than any Republican nominee. ~I'm not ignoring any polls, rather, I've observed most polls and they favor Obama. I've seen that McCain has gotten momentum recently in Rasmussen, and that's due to an OVERALL false pretense in my opinion (NYT wasn't complete BS or Hyperbole). I wouldn't entirely attribute the low voter turnout in Republican primaries to "indifference at this early stage of the race" either.
