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A review of the McCain Saga

By dcmediagirl on February 21, 2008 at 4:29 PM in Current Affairs, John McCain, Media, Presidential Candidates, Republicans, Sexism

There are some issues that have been raised as a result of this McCain/lobbyist story that should be addressed:

1. The sources are all anonymous and “disgruntled employees”:  I have yet to meet a whistleblower who’s not a disgruntled former or current employee.  That doesn’t make their information inaccurate.  Besides, John Weaver, a man who is still loyal to McCain, went on the record. For him to go public with such an explosive revelation that could prove so embarrassing for McCain is highly telling.  This can’t be explained away by suggesting that he did this to take revenge on McCain after their falling out.  Let’s remember that the New York Times sat on this story for months and that the piece was not sourced solely by Weaver.

2.  This is sexim.  If she’d been a male lobbyist this story wouldn’t have gotten attention:  Oh come on. Tell that to Duke Cunningham – if you can reach him in his prison cell.  Besides, I guess those who made this argument didn’t take one very important thing into account. It’s telling that  John Weaver met with Iseman at Union Station to tell her to “stay away from the Senator.” Lobbyists are conduits for campaign contributions. Staff would only intervene in this extreme way if there was a chance that there was something that set off alarm bells with McCain’s people about the relationship, whatever that may be.   Interestingly, their conversation was about “her conduct and what she allegedly had told people.” It would be fascinating to know what it was she had “allegedly” said to people that would launch this all-hands-on-deck damage control move.

3. It doesn’t matter: Oh yes it does.  Again, it’s taken years for McCain to undo the damage caused by the Keating 5 scandal.  McCain took a lot of heat for his work on campaign finance reform and his battle to “fight special interests.” This story, if proven true, would blow apart this carefully honed image and expose McCain as a hypocrite who’d gone against his party to provide cover for his own failings.  Conservatives are angry enough at him already; if a sexual component is revealed, well, let’s just say that doesn’t help.

  • DisenfranchisedVoter

    Well, the story probably doesn’t matter because if the NYTimes had any other reliable sources or proof of this sexual relationship, wouldn’t they have included it in today’s story? If this is all the NYTimes has against McCain then McCain and the conservatives win again. I’m still waiting for the NYTimes to come forward with something new about this story before I come to any conclusions as to whether or not this will hurt McCain. Unless there is a video, photographs, or a confession from this female lobbyist then the NYTimes likely has nothing concrete to really do any longterm damage.

  • Kathleen

    MCain, Iseman, Conrad Black over at Emptywheel’s@Firedoglake

    Susan, Larry all..

    New Iaea report about Iran coming out. Scott Ritter talked about this several months ago.
    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19391.htm

  • Robin

    Did everybody see this?

    RePigs for Obama … any suggestions?

    http://www.republicansforobama.org/?q=node/358

    • Kathleen

      As Susan indicated and I witnessed in South Carolina and am hearing this in Ohio this is a strategy being used to defeat Clinton.

    • rjj

      ANY SUGGESTIONS?

      YES! Feature this more prominently. Nesting makes it very hard (for the lazy) to track posts in this site.

      • Robin

        Dude … no idea what your talking about ” nesting” WTF is that? I’m damn lucky I got the link here period. If you have more skill, which anyone with working fingers probably has, then by all means, pick it up and move it forward.

  • ybnormal

    I think the added significance of this McCain/lobbyist story is that it’s a segue into the ‘real’ campaign season.

    We’ve had most of the primaries, practice matches with sparring partners. Now we start the elimination matches. Then in the fall we’ll have the heavy-weight championship.

    While far from being fluff, this story essentially alleges that McCain has skeletons in the form of suspicious behaviour, and by the way here’s one more. 3/4 of the NYT story reviews McCain’s past, as establishing a pattern, then presents the current issue of suspicion mostly based on the alleged perception of un-named sources with un-stated corroborations, along with a named source.

    This is another milestone in the ramping up of campaign reporting, which will continue to gradually push the line further out on how much news media will compete for audience share.

    We ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

    • grannyhelen

      But so far I’m really impressed by McCain’s handling of this thing. It’s been swift and on-message and on the offense.

      Contrast that with Obama’s mishandling of the Rezko story…and an Obama-McCain match up gives me a sinking feeling inside…

      • Delia

        What? Like NcCain’s non-denial denial? That was real impressive, all right. Sort of like what the definition of “is” is.

        U.S. Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign today issued the following statement by Communications Director Jill Hazelbaker:

        “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.”

        • grannyhelen

          He’s gotten out ahead of the story. He’s spun it his base in a way that galvinizes them.

          I don’t LIKE McCain. I would rather have this completely sink him.

          My point is that we should learn from how they’re handling this – they’re actually getting a lot of sympathy right now.

          • Fred C. Dobbs

            I’m inclined to not trust a man who doesn’t enjoy a drink, smoke a cigar upon occasion and can claim, with a straight face, that he’s never knocked off some Strange as a politician.

            But theives of money and influence peddlers generally make me gag.

            McCain (a man who’s never held a real private sector job, nullifying his Republican bona fides) is both.

            Don’t need a monk or a paragon of virtue. Would like to vote for a guy who has made a payroll and doesn’t steal from the public or trade on his office.

            NOTE TO GOP: Let’s have Bloomberg…please?

  • Delia

    From what I’ve been reading online today, this is one of those stories that “everyone” in Washington has known about for months. The NYT (and the LAT) were siting on it and the former only broke it because The New Republic was about to go to press with a story about how they were sitting on it.

    McCain was known to have affairs for years during his first marriage. He only became a “straight-shooter” after the Keating 5 scandal. There’s already evidence of his intervening in favor of this lobbyist’s interests, which is the public interest scandal in the current affair. No doubt, there’s a lot still to come out. But just as the gooper powers-that-be are now trying to paper over his character flaws, such as his known volcanic temper, it seems likely that they’re trying to paper over his carefully constructed image. I’m sure more will come out.

  • myiq2xu

    There still is no eyewitness report of an affair. Weaver only said they chased her away because she was claiming that she had a special relationship.

    Snitching on your client is the kind of thing that is a professional no-no, especially in the GOP where omerta is strictly enforced.

    And since when is a Senator doing special favors for a lobbyist a story?

    • Delia

      And since when is a Senator doing special favors for a lobbyist a story?

      Since St. NcCain, the straight-shooter, implied that he was gonna clean up the pig-sties in DC.

  • jwrjr

    It is beginning to look like the REAL purpose in releasing this story is to get the republicans who last week hated McWar’s guts to all come together and defend the pure, innocent, saintly man against the evil liberal media.

    • Fred C. Dobbs

      Couldn’t sneak it past you, could they?

  • Sam Copeland

    What is most impressive about this story is how all members of the GOP rushed to McCain’s defense and attack the NYT (including those such as Limbaugh who claimed not to like McCain).

    Compare that to when Bill Clinton had a hit piece on him done by the NYT a few weeks ago concerning the deal in Kazakhstan. Most Democrats sat around and did nothing. Those on the left joined in on the attack.

    And we wonder why Democrats lose elections.

  • bob h

    I can understand a man of McCain’s age deriving great pleasure from the innocent company of a woman like this, and I assume he guarded against undue influence on him, but what bothers me is that he lied to the American people about being warned off her by staffers.

  • Sometime-CIA-Defender

    I think this story is an interesting one. On page 2 of this WaPo article in discussing why McCain cannot withdraw from the public campaign financing program (which he helped to create):

    The second issue is more complicated. It involves a $1 million loan McCain obtained from a Bethesda bank in January. The bank was worried about his ability to repay the loan if he exited the federal financing program and started to lose in the primary race. McCain promised the bank that, if that happened, he would reapply for matching money and offer those as collateral for the loan. While McCain’s aides have argued that the campaign was careful to make sure that they technically complied with the rules, Mason indicated that the question needs further FEC review.

    So, he took out a loan and used the Federally matching funds (read: taxpayer money) to guarantee the loan.

  • John Son

    I believe most Americans know what issues we face as a nation as we try to decide which candidate(s) will best resolve them. We see in John McCain’s life, past and present a devotion to serve his country. Anyone who knows Senator McCain will tell you that he has passion for what he believes in and a constant drive to serve his country to the best of his abilities with sincerity, truthfulness, and dedication.

    Most Americans are aware of the courageous service John provided as a naval aviator and POW . But few can fully appreciate how bad the egregious hospitality of the Hanoi Hilton was .His main concerns were for other POWs’ life threatening conditions and how he could help them is spite of the injuries he had received prior to and during his confinement.

    To this day John’s truthfulness and dedication for what he believes in is demonstrated by his sincere and noble service as a Senator of the United States of America. We could do a whole lot worse than vote for John Mc Cain as our next president of the United States for every man, woman and child in our country regardless of their political affiliation.

    God Speed John Mc Cain