Newsweek: What We Actually Know About McCain and Iseman

[Hepburn]

<snip>

3. Did McCain actually do anything wrong?

Depends how you define the word "wrong." If we're talking legally wrong, then no; McCain's hands are clean. But that's not really the issue. Both the Times and the Post report that McCain accepted more than $100,000 in campaign donations from interests represented by Iseman and her firm before taking actions at Isenman's urging that were intended to benefit the lobbyist's clients--and drawing a rare rebuke for interference from the head of the FCC. (McCain denies discussing the issue with Iseman; Iseman says she sent information to his staff.) Here's the Post's account:


In the years that McCain chaired the commerce committee, Iseman lobbied for Lowell W. "Bud" Paxson, the head of what used to be Paxson Communications... In late 1999, McCain wrote two letters to the FCC urging a vote on the sale to Paxson of a Pittsburgh television station. The sale had been highly contentious in Pittsburgh and involved a multipronged lobbying effort among the parties to the deal. At the time he sent the first letter, McCain had flown on Paxson's corporate jet four times to appear at campaign events and had received $20,000 in campaign donations from Paxson and its law firm. The second letter came on Dec. 10, a day after the company's jet ferried him to a Florida fundraiser that was held aboard a yacht in West Palm Beach... When the letters became public, William E. Kennard, chairman of the FCC at the time, denounced them as "highly unusual" coming from McCain, whose committee chairmanship gave him oversight of the agency.


This sort of chronology, which raises suspicions of influence peddling, is par for the course in Washington. But over the past 20 years, McCain has styled himself a crusader for reform, routinely launching stinging critiques of lobbyists and maintaining that he has "never, ever done a favor for any lobbyist or special interest group." Now there's Iseman on one side of the story, " up regularly at meetings of telecom lobbyists in Washington" to "extoll... her connections to McCain and his office," according to the Post. On the other side, there's a cabal of worried staffers struggling to separate her from McCain--and, in so doing, tacitly conceding that McCain's connection to this particular woman was stronger and stranger than any of his dozens of other relationships with lobbyists. And in the middle is the senator himself, perhaps betraying the intensity of that connection in a series of "highly unusual" moves that look a whole lot like favors.


Forget the "romantic relationship"; at this point, it remains a huge, hovering question mark. For now, whether you think McCain did anything wrong depends largely on whether you believe he should be held to the standards of "politics as usual"--or whether he should be held to the standards he's set for himself.

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/stumper/archive/2008/02/...

Good summary of the problem with the relationship between McCain and Iseman...and how it reflects on McCain and his views of himself.

JMHO

[TwilightGardener]

1. Simply put, he loves to be the high-and-mighty crusader, full of unquestionable

honor and integrity, and yet he deals inappropriately with lobbyists and does what appears to be favors right out in the open. Almost like he's DARING us to challenge his ethics.

[liberal N proud]

2. Oh the irony - Depends how you define the word "wrong."

[truebrit71]

5. No kidding!

[Vanje]

7. "If loving you is wrong, I dont want to be right"

http://cache.viewimages.com/xc/3077520.jpg?v=1&c=ViewIm...

[Hepburn]

8. Is that a great line....or what!?!?!

Caught my eye immediately.

BTW: The other questions in the article are very good, too. Raises the issues IMO as they should be raised ... not just whether or not he was screwing Iseman, but the issue of influence.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

3. K&R(#4) Do we have the beginnings of a media "feeding frenzy" on the corrupt

Washington "quid pro quo" system Obama blasts every day?

Thank goodness the Senate has put required reports of "contributions" to Washington pols and lobbying expenditures over $10,000 online.

If you have a lobbyist's name, corporation name, or Congressperson's name, you can research possible corrupt lobbying expenses and contributions at URL http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/search.asp

[truebrit71]

4. Very interesting reading...

...

[Drifter]

6. McCain is a Vietnam War Hero ...

nothing can change that.

McCain is also corrupt politician ... and nothing is going to change that either.

John, meet your new roommate ... everyone calls him Duke !

Cheers
Drifter

[mzmolly]

9. "This sort of chronology, which raises suspicions of influence peddling, is par for the course in

Washington..."

Which is why we need fundamental change.

[Hepburn]

10. Amen, MzMolly!

McCain....out of one side of his mouth....HOW HE SUPPORTS ETHICS...la dee dah. Out of the other side....ummmmm....well, we can all guess, right?

[mzmolly]

11. Isn't it interesting that the so called "man of integrity" has none?

[Hepburn]

12. Seems like....

...McCain was making claims to something that he LACKS and of which he is NOT an example! Imagine that...???