The New York Times Gives John McCain a Little Scrutiny
by Jonathan Singer, Wed Feb 20, 2008 at 03:07:47 PM EST
I don't know how to title a post relating to this type of article from The New York Times:
Early in Senator John McCain's first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers.A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, in his offices and aboard a client's corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself -- instructing staff members to block the woman's access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.
When news organizations reported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist's clients, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement.
Mr. McCain, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, both say they never had a romantic relationship. But to his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity.
It had been just a decade since an official favor for a friend with regulatory problems had nearly ended Mr. McCain's political career by ensnaring him in the Keating Five scandal. In the years that followed, he reinvented himself as the scourge of special interests, a crusader for stricter ethics and campaign finance rules, a man of honor chastened by a brush with shame.
But the concerns about Mr. McCain's relationship with Ms. Iseman underscored an enduring paradox of his post-Keating career. Even as he has vowed to hold himself to the highest ethical standards, his confidence in his own integrity has sometimes seemed to blind him to potentially embarrassing conflicts of interest.
Read the whole piece by Jim Rutenberg, Marilyn W. Thompson, David D. Kirkpatrick and Stephen Labaton here. And, please, a little tact in the comments section, if possible...
Update [2008-2-20 20:17:1 by Todd Beeton]:Hilarious that this would break the day after McCain says this:
Thank you Wisconsin for bringing us to the point where even a superstitious Naval aviator can claim with confidence and humility that I will be our party's nominee for president of the United States.
An alternate title to this post might be "The Reason Mike Huckabee Stayed In." MSNBC is reporting on this as though there's some there there. Whether there's a smoking gun as to the affair or not, seems to me the story alone could do some serious damage to a candidate who has benefited from the sense in the media and among independent voters that his principles and ethics are unimpeachable. Favorite line from the piece:
"He is essentially an honorable person," said William P. Cheshire, a friend of Mr. McCain who as editorial page editor of The Arizona Republic defended him during the Keating Five scandal. "But he can be imprudent."
Heh. And that's from one of his "friends."
Tags: John McCain, Lobbyists (all tags)
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