So, is this story that the New York Times published today about John McCain's "improper" relationship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman about McCain or the New York Times? Has the New York Times gone too far and stepped out of its normal parameters of reporting news? Will they still be the "paper of record?"This could be a unbelievably damaging story to the Republican Party, not so much from the standpoint of McCain having an affair, but from the fact that he did favors for Isemen when he was the head of the Commerce committee.
Before I render any judgment, the sources that are saying McCain did have an improper relationship need to go on record. The New York Times has a lot of explaining to do and I really need to hear all that from Bill Keller, executive editor of the Times, and not the writers of the story. And by improper, I mean from the lobbyist angle not the sexual angle. Can we please move past this crap in this country? I don't give shit if McCain had group sex with the entire east wing of the Shady Oaks retirement home. The fact that we are obsessed with our leader's sex lives means we have much growing up to do.
4 comments:
This is going to be a very interesting story.
Sex is not really the issue: it's McCain's integrity. He had an inappropriately close relationship with a lobbyist who had numerous requests before his committee, and on whose behalf he had made several requests to government agencies.
McCain flew with the woman on airplanes owned by her employer. He did not report these flights with her "because it wasn't required," though he reported other similar flights. He seems to have tried to cover the relationship up.
It also seems that John McCain's devotion to campaign finance reform was not so much his belief in the rightness of the cause, but payback for certain elements in the Republican party who used massive amounts of cash to trash him in the 2000 election.
As the article points out, he didn't see any problem with soft money going to his campaign finance reform PAC. He only disassociated himself from it once the hypocrisy was pointed out to him.
McCain's claim that you can be a close personal friend with a lobbyist and not be influenced by them is sheer nonsense. His relationship with her, regardless of any sexual aspects, was a conflict of interest. The only way you can pal around with lobbyists and retain your integrity is to avoid doing anything that helps them. On more than one occasion McCain voted for their legislation and asked federal agencies to help them.
I hadn't remembered this, but McCain was one of the Keating Five. This story is more an echo of that fiasco.
Completely agree, blk. Once again we see the tired "Traitor Times" rhetoric. Why are people who criticize conservatives traitors btw?
According to Newsweek, McCain now denies that he ever met with Paxson, who owns the telecomm company that McCain went to bat for.
However, in a deposition for a suit brought against the McCain-Feingold bill, McCain admitted that he met the guy (and, he says, "maybe" his lobbyist -- the woman Iseman), did stuff for him and got $20,000 bucks. In a remarkably candid moment he said that the average voter would consider this corrupt.
Either McCain was lying under oath then, or he's lying now. The Times didn't find this testimony when they did their original article, but Newsweek managed to do the Times' howework for them.
The effect of this all appears to have been to rally support for McCain from the right. Now they see that he's been playing ball with big corporations all along, Rush Limbaugh and his ilk think McCain is the bee's knees. Money has been flooding in from conservatives who hate the Times more than they hate McCain.
It's really ironic that they rally the side of a man who has been outed as a liar and a hypocrite, but despised him when he appeared to have integrity. But that's the Bizarro world of right-wing politics.
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