Big scandal news today out of the New York Times: John McCain had an uncomfortably close, relationship - according to McCain staffers - with lobbyist Vicki Iseman at the same time he was working on her clients' behalf in the Senate commerce committee, of which he was chair:
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....
Senator McCain's relationship Iseman was questionable enough so that staffers tried to intervene, limiting her time with McCain and even warning both the Senator and his lobbyist of the impropriety of their relationship.
So...what to think of this report? It's awfully thin, isn't it? Apparently, one of the motivating factors for printing the story was that other publications were chasing it.
Most of the initial reaction to the story in the blogs - as you might imagine - was strictly partisan. From the right, Townhall's Mary Katherine Ham poses a rhetorical question: "What's the Quickest Way to Rally Conservatives 'Round McCain?" (I'll leave you to mull over the irony that McCain is an anathema to "conservatives" when he strives towards ethics reform; and a hero when he's suspected of ethical impropriety.) On the left, Kossak Scout Finch: "Speculation about an affair is one thing, but an intimate relationship with a telecommunications lobbyist? Not smart. Not smart at all."
The best analysis of the night, however, belongs to Josh Marshall:
I find it very difficult to believe that the Times would have put their chin so far out on this story if they didn't know a lot more than they felt they could put in the article, at least on the first go. But in a decade of doing this, I've learned not to give any benefits of the doubt, even to the most esteemed institutions.
Equally telling, though, is the McCain camp's response and their clear unwillingness to address or deny any the key charges of the piece. (Read the statement closely. It's all bluster.) When it comes to sex stories even falsely accused politicians have some reluctance to get into nitty gritty denials. But McCain -- or rather McCain's communications office since it's in their name not his -- doesn't even address it.
That tells you something. So too does the Post's decision to jump in very quickly. Charles Kaiser, at Radar, gives some of the backstory on the other publications that were in the hunt and why the Times may have pulled the trigger when they did. Apparently some others were about to jump in too.
Reading all of this stuff I have the distinct feeling that only a few pieces of the puzzle are now on the table. Given unspoken understandings of many years' duration, a lot of reporters and DC types can probably imagine what the full picture looks like. But we're going to need a few more pieces before the rest of us can get a sense of what this is all about.
Indeed. You get the feeling a lot more is going to come out on this topic. And McCain's past as a member of the notorious Keating Five is going to be brought up, just as you knew it would eventually. The old narrative was that McCain's embarrassment at being "duped" by a charismatic and crooked supporter drove him to champion ethics reform. Today's Time's hit piece challenges that narrative.
In an era of apparent hunger for change from the Establishment way of doing things, it's bad to have a history with attractive telecom lobbyists.
