Take A Stand On Government Corruption
One more thought about McCain’s new pay-for-play scandal*. Unless I’m wrong about this, using a major committee chair to enrich an alleged illicit sex partner seems like a fairly serious breach of public trust. In fact it seems like exactly the sort of offense that the Congressional ethics committees exist to deal with. Good luck arguing that it matters less than Larry Craig’s indirect attempt to use his Senate ID card to intimidate a Minneapolis airport cop, and look how swiftly Tim Johnson’s committee dealt with that. To me me it seems that the risk of raising David Broder’s precious eyebrows is outweighed by the fact that McCain potentially committed a pretty serious breach. At the very least McCain deserves a formal chance to clear his name.
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(*) My official entry in the scandal naming contest – submit your own in the comments!
***Update***
Greg Sargent wonders at TPM whether the story is a John Solomon all-bun-no-beef special. Could be, though Sargent does grant, based on later reporting at the WaPo, that the lobbying angle at least could have (cough) legs. Three things that we do know for sure is that the current news cycle really sucks for John McCain, his former staffers don’t have a problem fanning the flames, and timing suggests that a Republican contender set the whole thing in motion.
wasabi gasp
The Breacharound.
Billy K
Just start numbering them. There are too many for actual names.
ThymeZone
Well, yes, but it’s the apparent impropriety that counts, and it counts whether there was an affair, or not. And further, it’s HIS refusal to see that, that really matters. This man thinks he is above reproach and insists on being treated that way. Is that what we want in a president, somebody who is tone deaf to those concerns?
But “clearing his name” is not the issue on the table. It’s not about whether he actually did anything—this time—it’s about whether he thinks he can skirt the edges of propriety and then say “talk to the hand” when he is questioned. Aren’t we sick of politicians like that?
Zifnab
We’ll need to check his counter tops with a black light.
Dug Jay
Liberal journalist, Greg Sargent, writes over at the TPM blog:
After all, the above grafs appear to constitute the meat of this story. The gist of it seems to be that according to anonymous sources, eight years ago McCain’s aides intervened in a relationship between him and a female lobbyist that may or may not have been sexual, and may or may not have constituted improper influence peddling, because they were worried that something untoward might be happening and were concerned about what her appearances with him in public looked like.
JL
What does McCain mean when he says “he never betrayed the public’s trust”? When concerns about his being close to lobbyists first came up in 2000, he worked on finance campaign laws. In 2006 he authored a bill about using corporate planes when he was caught being a big abuser of this practice. During the primary when he was considering gaming public financing, he turned it around to attack Obama on a pledge. Although he used ear marks himself, he is now the champion against them. If you look at his past practice, I assume he’ll introduce a bill making marriage classes a tax deduction.
John Cole
Yes.
Which is why I am not writing about it. If something shakes out that shows the indisgressions were more than personal, I will have a lot to say. If this is just McCain boffing a 40-something blonde, I don’t really care. McCain aint Dobson or one of the culture warriors, and I feel bad for Cindy McCain (despite her little smear of Michelle Obama the other day).
Tim F.
Dug, add a link so that I don’t have to go hunting around for things you cite.
empty
There are times I have agreed with McCain and others when I have disagreed. And right now I think he would be a disaster in the presidency because of his foreign policy views – especially on the war. While I don’t have the faith in Obama that most of the denizens of this blog do I think there is much more chance that he would succumb to public pressure and end the occupation (not just withdraw “combat” troops) so he is the one I will vote for in November. Having said that, I followed the Keating scandal in real time and I felt then that of the five McCain was the least culpable. Stupid maybe to get caught in the mess but not venal like the others. This is my recollection and it is quite possible I was totally off. In this scandal again listening to McCain’s responses (here), I get the feeling he is being honest. Now, I’ll sit back and wait for the little blue (or gold) dress.
Dennis - SGMM
Stop picking on McCain just because he hired Robert Bennett doesn’t mean that there was any wrong doing on McCain’s part. Bennett, for the non-wonkish, was Clinton’s lawyer in the Lewinsky case, Judith Miller’s in the Plame case, Caspar Weinberger’s in Iran-Contra, Clark Clifford’s in the BCCI scandal and Paul Wolfowitz’ in the World Bank scandal.
Clearly, McCain as a supporter of warrantless wiretapping and the government’s unfettered surveillance of its own citizens knows that if you’ve done nothing wrong then you have nothing to fear.
ThymeZone
How can you NOT trust a guy who was tortured as a POW and now supports the use of torture?
I mean, that’s a MAVERICK kinda guy, isn’t it?
Decided FenceSitter
Tim,
Dug got it from Horse’s Mouth at TPM.
Jon H
Since he’s a Navy aviator, how about calling it the “Top Crush” scandal.
(And, really, wouldn’t it be just pathetic if he gave favors to clients of an unrequited crush?)
wasabi gasp
The Maverick label, I’ll never understand; more like Gremlin. But, since his shit is starting to blow up, I’ll go with Pinto.
Dennis - SGMM
The difference is that the Dem Presidential Hopeful version would have been trumpeted 24/7 by the media. Every bit of speculation, unsubstantiated gossip, and innuendo would have been presented without challenge. The right wing noise machine would have gone into overdrive, screaming once more about how Democrats don’t represent real Americans. There would be much harrumphing from the punditocracy about “character” and “fitness to hold high office.”
So, no, it’s not the same and we’re not the same. The TPM piece is not “a little experiment” – it’s an exercise in half-assed sophistry that ignores the realities of the last twenty-seven years.
ArtB
Even though I really couldn’t care less about the sex part of this scandal (so long as the sexual favors weren’t in return for legislative favors), I’m still partial to Viagra-gate. It’s not witty or clever, but it’s exactly the short of lazy short-hand that the cable news hacks love to headline their stories with.
Jen
Is that when you don’t digress but stay on topic?
Sorry, just hadn’t seen it spelled quite that way before.
What strikes me about this story is, WTF did McCain do to piss off his aides? Back, meet knife.
demimondian
I’d call it “Tail Hook II —Telecomm Boogaloo” myself.
Paddy
One of my commenters called the scandal “The Iseman Cometh”. Damn well-read hippies.
Dennis - SGMM
I like “Revenge of the Turds”
Jen
“Poetic Justice”?
lutton
over at FireDogLake – http://firedoglake.com/2008/02.....k-express/
The Stray Cock Express…
Bobzim
How about “Tail Crook”?
taodon
“Telecum Scandal”
John Cole
Winner.
This debate is over.
Dennis - SGMM
Maybe this is just a clever attempt to defuse the charge that McCain is too geezered-out to be prez.
zzyzx
I agree that I don’t care either about the affair in the sense that it’s an affair, but you can’t give a lobbyist blackmail material over you. It’s dumb and dangerous. I would be surprised if she received nothing at all over the years.
Jen
Do you realize you just awarded victory to the Jane Hamshers of the world?
Tsulagi
Naw, that’s my second choice, I like this one…
I think Bill O’Reilly could get behind, or in front, of that one too.
Yeah, that’s the way it should be. But since McCain is a happy R-carder in a party with a large family values (with wetsuits and gay hookers in the closet) contingent that loves any opportunity to tell you how morally superior they are, my sympathy meter has a hard time moving for him.
Stooleo
I really like Will Bunch’s take on the whole thing. The timing is suspicious, and nothing puts a feather in your cap like being smeared by the Grey Lady. Now Rush and all the other hacks will be rallying to McCains defense. Also it explains TZ mention of Cindy McCains shit eatiing grin.
DougJ
If this is just McCain boffing a 40-something blonde, I don’t really care.
I agree, but it seems to be the boffing that’s in question, not the appearance of special treatment for her clients.
Conservatively Liberal
Call it PantyGate? K-WhyGate? Lay2PlayGate?
The only angle that involves sex that would concern me is if he got laid so she got paid for her lobbying. Quid Pro Cum, if you catch my drift. If that is the case, then there is a story here. If it is just a straight affair, there is nothing of interest to me other than the fact that in my book, marital infidelity does not score high on the Presidential Quotient Scale.
Jake
The Road to Isemangard.
/LotR Geeking
Andrew
Technically speaking, it was a 32-something blonde.
Tim H.
The Blonde Ambition Tour?
Broken
ISE-GATE.
McCain can’t skate from it.
caustics
Maybe, but not right away. I caught bits of Rush’s first hour and he didn’t exactly have McCain’s back.
Imagine being one of the strato-wingnuts now— having spent months trashing McCain in their quest for movementarian purity, they are finally coming to terms with the grim reality that they are stuck with him.
Instincts will conflict, heads will explode. It’ll be fun, for sure.
JGabriel
Tim F.:
One more thought about McCain’s new pay-for-play scandal…
“Pay-for-play” is good, damn good. But I think Jane Hamsher is gonna win the ‘name this scandal’ game with “Stray Cock Express”.
I mean, that’s great.
.
JGabriel
John Cole:
If this is just McCain boffing a 40-something blonde, I don’t really care.
Well, at the time in question, McCain would have been 64 and Iseman, 33.
But I’m sure ‘play for pay’ had nothing to do with it. I’m sure she was just really, really, attracted to the energetic, short, gonad-shaped, 64 year old senator. Happens all the time.
.
JGabriel
Jen:
Do you realize you just awarded victory to the Jane Hamshers of the world?
Of course he didn’t.
We all know that the set of ‘the Jane Hamshers of the world’ doesn’t actually include Jane Hamsher, because Russell and Wallace ruled that self-inclusive sets were inconsistent and therefore couldn’t be the basis of a consistent set of mathematical axioms in the Principia Mathematica.
Or something like that.
.
srv
McKronygate
grumpy realist
My (cynical) take on this is that the MSM are bored with the lack-of-a-horserace on the Republican side, so had to run around and find something to yell about.
I’d have more sympathy for the NYT if they had stuck to the provable stuff and what looks to be exchanges of favors-for-money. (The fact that McCain didn’t realize that this would look “suspicious” makes me wonder about his brains.) The sex stuff? Eh. I could as easily take all the so-called “data” they have and interpret it as a woman with an obsession about McCain who indulged in some quasi-stalking behavior.
Ed Drone
Well, since he proudly wears the Big W brand, he is no longer a “maverick” (which is an unbranded cow).
Ed
Delia
I’m watching St John doing his denials on the teevee. Now I’ve never played poker with the man. I don’t even play poker. But he sure does blink a lot when he denies ever doing anything wrong with that lobbyist.
here4tehbeer
Pay for Play?
His wifey has all the money – shouldn’t it be “Play for Pay”? Of course that would fit well with the Public Funding opt-in / opt-out scam as well…
Delia
She’s definitely not getting her money’s worth. Take him back to the husband store, I say.