New McCain scandal; sex brings down another candidate?

I certainly can't imagine anyone changing their vote over this. Lobbyists and politicians have been having their way with one another for centuries. Wether it's sex or money I don't see the difference. Neither party can claim immunity.

*nods* If this story was about Obama or Clinton the thread title would mention "Media Hit Piece" or "Dirty Tricks".

The sex part is a non issue; it is the fact the woman was a lobbyist and consequent legislation may have resulted from this relationship if the story is true. This makes McCain a hypercrit at best for portraying and pushing anti-lobbyist reform. Sometimes things seem so clear that I just don't understand the need to have to spell it out. I think some just don't want to see the obvious.

Phoenix
[/B]

Phoenix, not so. Do you recall that I never voted for Bill Clinton? If you read my comments, you would find that I think the lobbyist favors are the most damaging, not the sex.

BBB

Agreed that the lobbyist favors are the big part of the story. The sexual angle will merely seek to propagate it in the minds of readers.

Interestingly, the lobbyist firm mentioned is furiously scrubbing its' website. The pages went down one by one last night (starting with 'who we are!') and now the whole site is off-line. The lobbyist in question has lawyered up and so has McCain himself.

Not proof of guilt, but not signs of a relaxed, innocent situation either.

Cycloptichorn

Did 'New Republic' Make 'NYT' Go With McCain Story Now?
Did 'New Republic' Make 'NYT' Go With McCain Story Now?
By E&P Staff
Published: February 21, 2008 7:50 AM ET

NEW YORK In the aftermath of The New York Times finally publishing its bombshell linking John McCain to a female lobbyist, The New Republic at its site revealed late last night: "The McCain campaign is apparently blaming TNR for forcing the Times' hand on this story. We can't yet confirm that. But we can say this: TNR correspondent Gabe Sherman is working on a piece about the Times' foot-dragging on the McCain story, and the back-and-forth within the paper about whether to publish it. Gabe's story will be online tomorrow."

McCain senior aide Mark Salter told Time magazine: "They did this because the The New Republic was going to run a story that looked back at the infighting there, the Judy Miller-type power struggles -- they decided that they would rather smear McCain than suffer a story that made the New York Times newsroom look bad."

E&P has not yet been able to reach a New York Times spokesman for comment.

McCain Bombshell re New Republic
20.02.2008
McCain Bombshell
The New Republic

Some key passages:

Mr. McCain's confidence in his ability to distinguish personal friendships from compromising connections was at the center of questions advisers raised about Ms. Iseman.

The lobbyist, a partner at the firm Alcalde & Fay, represented telecommunications companies for whom Mr. McCain's commerce committee was pivotal. Her clients contributed tens of thousands of dollars to his campaigns.

Mr. Black said Mr. McCain and Ms. Iseman were friends and nothing more. But in 1999 she began showing up so frequently in his offices and at campaign events that staff members took notice. One recalled asking, "Why is she always around?"

That February, Mr. McCain and Ms. Iseman attended a small fund-raising dinner with several clients at the Miami-area home of a cruise-line executive and then flew back to Washington along with a campaign aide on the corporate jet of one of her clients, Paxson Communications. By then, according to two former McCain associates, some of the senator's advisers had grown so concerned that the relationship had become romantic that they took steps to intervene.

A former campaign adviser described being instructed to keep Ms. Iseman away from the senator at public events, while a Senate aide recalled plans to limit Ms. Iseman's access to his offices.

In interviews, the two former associates said they joined in a series of confrontations with Mr. McCain, warning him that he was risking his campaign and career. Both said Mr. McCain acknowledged behaving inappropriately and pledged to keep his distance from Ms. Iseman. The two associates, who said they had become disillusioned with the senator, spoke independently of each other and provided details that were corroborated by others.

The story reads to me like it had originally been much more ambitious, but had its guts ripped out somewhere along the way. The obvious question is whether those guts will ever trickle out now that this story has surfaced.

For what it's worth, my first thought upon reading this was: "Blaire Hull" and "Jack Ryan." In addition to being a phenomenally talented politician, is it possible that Obama's the luckiest man in the history of civilization?

Update: These two grafs give you a peek into the making of this story:

Mr. McCain said that the relationship was not romantic and that he never showed favoritism to Ms. Iseman or her clients. "I have never betrayed the public trust by doing anything like that," he said. He made the statements in a call to Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, to complain about the paper's inquiries.

The senator declined repeated interview requests, beginning in December. He also would not comment about the assertions that he had been confronted about Ms. Iseman, Mr. Black said Wednesday.

Update II: The McCain campaign just released the following statement:

"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."

I guess there are worse things for a Republican nominee than having the New York Times take a shot at you. Assuming those theoretical guts never trickle out...

--Noam Scheiber

'Wash Post' Airs Its Own McCain/Iseman Story
'Wash Post' Airs Its Own McCain/Iseman Story
By E&P Staff
Published: February 20, 2008

Hours after The New York Times produced its newsmaking story alleging some sort of possibly improper relationship between Sen. John McCain and a female lobbyist, The Washington Post came out with a story that confirmed the Times report at least in part.

An excerpt from the Thursday Page One article by Jeffrey Birnbaum and Michael Shear, up at www.washingtonpost.com, follows.
-----------------------------------------------

Aides to Sen. John McCain confronted a elecommunications lobbyist in late 1999 and asked her to distance herself from the senator during the presidential campaign he was about to launch, according to one of McCain's longest-serving political strategists.

John Weaver, who served as McCain's closest confidant until leaving his current campaign last year, said he met with Vicki Iseman at the Center Cafe in Union Station and urged her to stay away from McCain. Association with a lobbyist would undermine his image as an opponent of special interests, aides had concluded.

Members of the senator's small circle of advisers also confronted McCain directly, according to sources, warning him that his continued relationship with a lobbyist who had business before the powerful Commerce Committee he chaired threatened to derail his presidential ambitions....

The McCain campaign put out a statement last night decrying "gutter politics" and saying the story -- which had been reported on the Drudge Report Web site in December -- was a "a hit and run smear campaign."

Iseman, 40, who joined the Arlington-based firm of Alcalde & Fay as a secretary and rose to partner within a few years, often touted her access to the chairman of the Senate commerce committee as she worked on behalf of clients such as Cablevision, EchoStar and Tribune Broadcasting, according to several other lobbyists who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

McCain, after his unsuccessful 2000 campaign, has emerged as the front-runner for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. His reputation as a crusader for Washington reform -- forged during almost 30 years in the Senate -- is based largely on his stinging critiques of the role played by lobbyists. He routinely decries earmarks, or pet projects, inserted into legislation. He has claimed repeatedly that he has "never, ever done a favor for any lobbyist or special interest group." It was this reputation that McCain's closest aides sought to protect.

"We were running a campaign about reforming Washington, and her showing up at events and saying she had close ties to McCain was harmful," said one aide.

The aide said the message to Iseman that day at Union Station in 1999 was clear: "She should get lost." The aide said Iseman stood up and left angrily.

Kurtz Carried McCain Link to Lobbyist Rumor Story Last Decem
Kurtz Carried McCain Link to Lobbyist Rumor Story Last December
By E&P Staff
Published: February 20, 2008

Howard Kurtz, the media reporter for The Washington Post, covered rumors about SEn. John McCain's link to a then-unnamed female lobbyist in a story last December 21.

The story burst in full bloom tonight with The New York Times carrying a prominent story on its Web site.

Here is an excerpt from the Kurtz report two months ago.
--------------------------------------------------

Sen. John McCain said yesterday that he has "never done any favors for anybody -- lobbyist or special interest group," as his presidential campaign issued a statement denouncing allegations of legislative favoritism as "gutter politics."

The Arizona Republican has hired a prominent Washington criminal attorney, Robert Bennett, to deal with the matter. "What is being done to John McCain is an outrage," Bennett said in an interview.

Bennett said he sent prepared answers yesterday to written questions submitted by New York Times reporters who have spent weeks investigating questions about whether the senator did favors for a Washington lobbyist or her clients. She has also retained a lawyer, according to a knowledgeable source who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was discussing legal matters.

McCain called Times Executive Editor Bill Keller this month to deny the allegations and to complain that he was not being treated fairly by the Times reporters, who had not yet interviewed him, the source said.

The Times inquiry burst into public view when the Drudge Report Web site posted an item about the newspaper's probe. Keller did not respond to a request to comment.

Speaking to reporters in Detroit, McCain confirmed the Times inquiry, adding: "I do find the timing of this whole issue very interesting. And we're not going to stand for what happened to us in 2000. We're getting close to the primary," he said, referring to the Jan. 8 contest in New Hampshire.

Bennett said McCain had personally retained him "to respond more forcefully" to the allegations than he did to unfounded rumors in the 2000 South Carolina primary, which included the falsehood that McCain had illegitimately fathered a black baby. Those rumors, Bennett said, "may have cost him the election."

McCain's top strategists initially declined to comment on the Drudge Report item, fearing that would open the door for news organizations to write about what his advisers regard as a non-story. McCain took the matter into his own hands by fielding questions about the controversy in Detroit, prompting his campaign to issue its statement.

"It is unfortunate that rumor and gossip enter into political campaigns," said the statement from Jill Hazelbaker, the campaign's communications director. "John McCain has a 24-year record of serving this 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 important issues facing our country."

Updates
John McCain Affair? Links To Female Lobbyist Exposed
New York Times | February 20, 2008 08:03 PM
New updates:

The New York Times has published a bombshell report linking Sen. John McCain to lobbyist Vicki Iseman. Some key excerpts:

Mr. McCain's confidence in his ability to distinguish personal friendships from compromising connections was at the center of questions advisers raised about Ms. Iseman.

The lobbyist, a partner at the firm Alcalde & Fay, represented telecommunications companies for whom Mr. McCain's commerce committee was pivotal. Her clients contributed tens of thousands of dollars to his campaigns.

Mr. Black said Mr. McCain and Ms. Iseman were friends and nothing more. But in 1999 she began showing up so frequently in his offices and at campaign events that staff members took notice. One recalled asking, "Why is she always around?"

That February, Mr. McCain and Ms. Iseman attended a small fund-raising dinner with several clients at the Miami-area home of a cruise-line executive and then flew back to Washington along with a campaign aide on the corporate jet of one of her clients, Paxson Communications. By then, according to two former McCain associates, some of the senator's advisers had grown so concerned that the relationship had become romantic that they took steps to intervene.

A former campaign adviser described being instructed to keep Ms. Iseman away from the senator at public events, while a Senate aide recalled plans to limit Ms. Iseman's access to his offices.

In interviews, the two former associates said they joined in a series of confrontations with Mr. McCain, warning him that he was risking his campaign and career. Both said Mr. McCain acknowledged behaving inappropriately and pledged to keep his distance from Ms. Iseman. The two associates, who said they had become disillusioned with the senator, spoke independently of each other and provided details that were corroborated by others. ...

Mr. McCain said that the relationship was not romantic and that he never showed favoritism to Ms. Iseman or her clients. "I have never betrayed the public trust by doing anything like that," he said. He made the statements in a call to Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, to complain about the paper's inquiries.

The senator declined repeated interview requests, beginning in December. He also would not comment about the assertions that he had been confronted about Ms. Iseman, Mr. Black said Wednesday.


Read the full NYT story here.

Ex-McCain Aide Says He Tried To Intervene: More details out tonight from the Washington Post:

Aides to Sen. John McCain confronted a telecommunications lobbyist in late 1999 and asked her to distance herself from the senator during the presidential campaign he was about to launch, according to one of McCain's longest-serving political strategists.

John Weaver, who served as McCain's closest confidant until leaving his current campaign last year, said he met with Vicki Iseman at the Center Cafe in Union Station and urged her to stay away from McCain. Association with a lobbyist would undermine his image as an opponent of special interests, aides had concluded.

Members of the senator's small circle of advisers also confronted McCain directly, according to sources, warning him that his continued relationship with a lobbyist who had business before the powerful Commerce Committee he chaired threatened to derail his presidential ambitions. ...

"We were running a campaign about reforming Washington, and her showing up at events and saying she had close ties to McCain was harmful," said one aide.

The aide said the message to Iseman that day at Union Station in 1999 was clear: "She should get lost." The aide said Iseman stood up and left angrily.
Three telecom lobbyists and a former McCain aide, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that Iseman spoke up regularly at meetings of telecom lobbyists in Washington, extolling her connections to McCain and his office. She would regularly volunteer at those meetings to be the point person for the telecom industry in dealing with McCain's office.

Concern about Iseman's presence around McCain at one point led to her being banned from his Senate office, according to sources close to McCain. ...


Who Is Vicki Iceman? Read full details about Vicki Iseman.

McCain Issues Statement: Just out from the McCain campaign:

"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."


Another McCain Aide Denies Story: Time's Ana Marie Cox talks to top McCain aide Mark Salter:

As for the story's claim that McCain's Senate staff worried, on the eve of the 2000 campaign, about the appearance of improprieties with Iseman, Salter was was dismissive: "There is ONE staffer with the authority and the ability to do this [to ban a visitor from the office]. And that's me. And I never did." Salter also said that the Senator would soon release statements from those people interviewed by the Times for the story -- "dozens" according to him -- who denied many of the facts alleged in the story (including Iseman's supposedly frequent presence in the Senate office), but who were not quoted in the piece. The Times also states that the lobbyist "accompanied" McCain to fundraisers. Salter was emphatic: "She ATTENDED McCain fundrasiers, she didn't ACCOMPANY McCain."

Washington Post Hinted At Story In December

Sen. John McCain said yesterday that he has "never done any favors for anybody -- lobbyist or special interest group," as his presidential campaign issued a statement denouncing allegations of legislative favoritism as "gutter politics."


The Arizona Republican has hired a prominent Washington criminal attorney, Robert Bennett, to deal with the matter. "What is being done to John McCain is an outrage," Bennett said in an interview.

Bennett said he sent prepared answers yesterday to written questions submitted by New York Times reporters who have spent weeks investigating questions about whether the senator did favors for a Washington lobbyist or her clients. She has also retained a lawyer, according to a knowledgeable source who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was discussing legal matters.

McCain called Times Executive Editor Bill Keller this month to deny the allegations and to complain that he was not being treated fairly by the Times reporters, who had not yet interviewed him, the source said.[...]

Bennett said McCain had personally retained him "to respond more forcefully" to the allegations than he did to unfounded rumors in the 2000 South Carolina primary, which included the falsehood that McCain had illegitimately fathered a black baby. Those rumors, Bennett said, "may have cost him the election."

Iseman Bio Pulled From Web: Within hours of the New York Times story going public, Iseman's bio was pulled from the web site of her firm, Alcade and Faye.

UPDATES: 2/21

NYT Editor Bill Keller Stands By Story: From Media Bistro:

On the substance we think the story speaks for itself. In all the uproar, no one has challenged what we actually reported. On the timing: Our policy is we publish stories when they're ready. "Ready" means that the facts have been nailed down to our satisfaction, the subjects have all been given a full and fair chance to respond and the reporting has been written up with all the proper context and caveats. This story was no exception. It was a long time in the works. It reached my desk late Tuesday afternoon. After a final edit and a routine check by our lawyers, we published it.

Top McCain Aide Explains Role In Story: John Weaver, a top McCain aide until his resignation in July, talks to Politico:

The only on-the-record source the New York Times used in their John McCain story says he gave his quote to the paper in December and immediately shared it with the Arizona senator's top strategists.

John Weaver, formerly McCain's top strategist, tells Politico that after hearing repeatedly from Times reporters working on the story, he asked for written questions and then provided an e-mail response.

"They asked about the Union Station meeting and so I answered their questions," Weaver says. "I forwarded it to Steve, Charlie and Mark within minutes of sending it to the Times."

Steve Schmidt, Charlie Black and Mark Salter are all top advisers to McCain.

McCain lawyers up with Robert Bennett
Jason Linkins, The Huffington Post
Robert Bennett Defends McCain, Airs Suspicions
February 20, 2008 11:35 PM

The New York Times is fueling outrage, astonishment, and suspicion tonight with their story on John McCain. Titled, "For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk," it paints a campaign concerned with ethical lapses, disingenuousness, and - in the blockbuster reveal of the article - the intimation of a romantic affair between McCain and lobbyist named Vicki Iseman.

McCain's campaign has already vowed to "go to war" with the paper:

"It's not every night I stay up to read the National Enquirer," said Charlie Black, who was with other top McCain aides at the senator's Arlington, Va., headquarters to mount the counter-attack.

Black noted he had taken heat from some of his "conservative friends' after McCain won the paper's endorsement in January. "We're going to go to war with them now," Black said. "We'll see if that hurts or helps."

A spirited defense of McCain was already being mounted on television Thursday by Robert Bennett, who has, according to the Drudge Report, been on this case for McCain since December 2007, when the high-profile lawyer (and Democrat brother to Republican Bill) was brought on to pressure the Times to kill the story:

Just weeks away from a possible surprise victory in the primaries, Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz has been waging a ferocious behind the scenes battle with the NEW YORK TIMES, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned, and has hired DC power lawyer Bob Bennett to mount a bold defense against charges of giving special treatment to a lobbyist!

McCain has personally pleaded with NY TIMES editor Bill Keller not to publish the high-impact report involving key telecom legislation before the Senate Commerce Committee, newsroom insiders tell the DRUDGE REPORT.

Bennett still insisted overnight that the story was nothing more than a "smear campaign," but important questions remain, chief among them being why the Times waited until now to publish the story. Was pressure out of the McCain camp sufficient to kill the story? Is there any truth to the reports surfacing tonight that the Times only ran the item tonight because The New Republic was planning on hitting them for not running it?

Additionally, one wonders: how will the Times counter the suspicion that agenda-driven or ideological motives are at work? On this regard, Bennett fueled a bit of speculation on the Hannity and Colmes Show tonight when he hinted that it was appropriate to have dark suspicions. (Video below)

COLMES: Were you at all involved in talks with the New York Times and it's also reported by the Washington Post that the Drudge Report is going to run this. Did you have any conversation with Drudge or the Times to try to get them to back off?

BENNETT: I had no conversations with the Drudge people. I did have several conversations and one meeting with the New York Times reporters and repeatedly provided them answers to their questions. And I was satisfied that there was nothing here. But no, I worked very hard at it. I am highly suspicious as to why and how their working on a story was leaked to Drudge. I have my suspicions, but I will be fairer to the New York Times than the New York Times is to John McCain.

COLMES: How do you think it was leaked?

BENNETT: I'm not going to engage in what the New York Times did. I don't have proof, so I'm not going to say it.

COLMES: Was this an effort on the part of the Times to -- it seems what Carl Cameron at the top of the show this was an attempt by the Times to ward off a giving out first by the New Republic and they wanted to beat them to their own story.

BENNETT: I just don't know about that so I really can't comment on that.

Cloak and dagger stuff, and sure to draw fire from the right - who'll likely paint this incident as an attempt to wreck McCain's chances. Of course, if that's the Times' true intention, they are realizing them rather clumsily: at this stage in the presidential contest, we're still months away from election day. As far as kneecappings go, it's a pretty poorly timed one.

In fact, if anyone has a right to be deeply aggrieved over the matter, it might be Mitt Romney. Ex-Romney backer Bay Buchanan said Thursday on CNN, "McCain's lawyers went into the New York Times and said do not touch this story. Do not move on this story. And there's no question this was beneficial to McCain to hold the story. no question. His nomination was very much threatened by this story if it broke too early. So what they did was hurt the Republican Party by not allowing this to be aired properly at the time they received this information."

"Lawyered up" indeed. Bob Bennett. This story has legs.

Then there was the Keating Five scandal in which he and four other senators tried to intervene on behalf of Charles Keating, head of the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, with banking regulators in the late 1980s.

On the other hand McCain has always been proud of America and wears his flight jacket with flag pin to prove it.

Dys
Dys, one major reason it is important that the sex angle exists is that the lobbyist favors would not have gotten much attention, which is the most important part of the story. That shy McCain defenders are focusing on the sexy part and trying to avoid the favors part.

McCain would not have to lawyer up with expensive Robert Bennett if it was just about sex. He's scared witless about the lobbyist favors part. Recall that McCain has been through this before several years ago. You remember the Keating kids?

The sexy stuff got the attention of the public and the Media. That's why sexy advertising works so well.

BBB

Here's a pretty good summary:



http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/02/a_real_story.php

CNN was just saying that The New Republic (The New Republic? I think so) was working on a story about how the NYT was sitting on this story but not publishing, and about controversy within the newsroom (to publish as-is or to wait?), and that might have been what pushed the NYT to publish now. (This wasn't reported as fact but as a "some people are saying" sort of thing.)

whatever it was I bet it required a lot of girth...

John Mccain took a young lobbyist up to his hotel room and wore her out for 60 screaming gasping solid minutes.

As she rolled over and rested she commented that it was an amazing performance for a man his age.

He told her that if she would hold his manhood in both hands without once letting go while he took a 20 minute cat nap he could do it again.

She was skeptical but took his unit in both hands and held it that way for the whole 20 minutes.

Mr. McCain awakend and proceeded to ravish her even more thoroughly, this time for 90 minutes.

As she lay in a sheen of sweat barely able to breathe she asked him if that trick always worked.

He replied he didn't know, but the last lobbyist he had in his room stole his wallet while he took his nap.

Apparently the NYT missed a big part of the story.

http://www.techliberation.com/archives/043365.php



Cycloptichorn

Heh.

My memory may not be so good on this but it seems to me the Keating 5 scandal involving McCain and others was somehow connected to Neil Bush and Silverado Savings debacle. Interesting innit?