The Go To Guy

by digby

I’m probably less interested in the sex angle on the McCain story than some because I’m just generally not inclined to go there unless someone’s been evoking family values every five minutes. McCain is a lot like his pal Joe Lieberman in his holier-than-thou unctuousness, but it’s about his “honor and integrity” in terms of public ethical integrity, not so much his personal behavior, which he’s always admitted was less than perfect. It’s sad that it takes a juicy tabloid angle to make anybody notice these things, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s the shady public ethics that make this story is important.

The meat of this thing has to do with favors he did for this lobbyist in his position as Chairman of the Commerce Committee, and I frankly don’t care whether he did it for money or sex or just because she made him feel young again,it’s unethical and hypocritical coming from someone who’s running as a reformer.

Marcy Wheeler in her typically thorough fashion gets to the nub of it in her post about two of the big communications companies lobbyist Iseman represented and what they were up to — Paxson and Sinclair. Both of those names also jumped out at me when I looked at her client list because they are both big right wing media players.

Sinclair, you’ll recall, was involved in all those controversies in 2004, canceling a Nightline episode which silently ran the names of the Americans killed in Iraq and then running that rubbish Swift Boat documentary “Stolen Honor.” Marcy notes that McCain failed to condemn the documentary instead attributing any problems with it to “media consolidation.” And that ties back in to Iseman and Paxson:

I said that it was the height of hypocrisy for McCain to complain about media concentration, because his contribution to the consolidation of Paxson Communication–the company whose plane he was flying around on, in the company of Vicki Iseman–is well documented.

The Alliance for Progressive Action and the QED Accountability Project charge Senator John McCain with influencing Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval of a hotly contested three-way Pittsburgh public television license exchange and sale. The decision favors Paxson Communications, a contributor to McCain’s presidential bid. The community groups await a response from the General Counsel of the FCC to their late Monday request for an investigation of McCain’s unusual actions. On November 17, 1999 the Senator and Presidential candidate instructed the FCC commissioners to take action on the deal no later than December 15, 1999. “If in your judgment the Commission cannot meet this request, please advise me of this fact in writing, with a specific and complete explanation, no later than November 18, 1999,” wrote McCain. In a second letter, dated December 10, 1999, written to FCC Chair William Kennard, McCain was even more forceful in his resolution. He demanded, “if the license applications were not acted upon” that Chairman Kennard “…explain why.” Obviously feeling the pressure, the commissioners voted to approve the application. However, the FCC press release indicated that the 30-page opinion included four separate dissenting opinions. Kennard responded to McCain’s letter by saying, “It is highly unusual for the commissioners to be asked to publicly announce their voting status on a matter that is still pending.” He said such inquiries “could have procedural and substantive impacts on the Commission’s deliberations and, thus, on the due process rights of the parties.” [my emphasis]

This is the intervention that McCain’s advisors were allegedly so worried about in 1999, when he first ran for President.

When I read the NYT story last night, it was obvious that this story was a holdover from what now looks pretty clearly like a dodged bullet in the 2000 campaign. This Paxson stuff has been out there since then.

Read Marcy’s whole post and you’ll see that there are a lot of dots to be connected if anybody wants to slog through commerce committee documents. And read this one too about Conrad Black. The nexus of McCain and Iseman is the nexus of Republican politics and right wing media.

The press has always fawned over McCain. But it isn’t just because McCain likes to tell dirty stories from his Navy days to the boys on the bus, although that’s a potent inducement I’m sure. He also was, for many years, the powerful Chairman of the Commerce Committee which oversees the FCC and regulates media concerns. There were many reasons why media lobbyists, media moguls (and yes, ambitious, boss pleasing editors and reporters) would have been interested in cozying up to John McCain when the Republicans were in the majority, which is why McCain’s staffers were so upset that said lobbyist Iseman was bragging about doing that all over town.

Update: The New Republic posted the story today that is rumored to have forced the NYT to publish last night. The press has always been inexplicably protective of McCain, and judging by their squeamishness about pursuing even the corruption angle on this story, they still are.

Update II: Tucker Carlson just said that there has been a tacit agreement in the press dating from ten years ago that unless they had a pretty good reason they wouldn’t go after “bedroom habits.” If that’s true, it was certainly big of them to do it after they’d already drooled over the most intimate details of Clinton’s sex life all over the television and newspapers 24/7 for months. Typical.

Update III: It really is rich that McCain continues to pretend he’s a big reformer when his unpaid campaign manager, Rick Davis, is a lobbyist for shady Russian oligarchs and countries like Montenegro:

“… in August 2006, Davis was present again at a social gathering that was also attended by McCain and Deripaska, this time in Montenegro, another Eastern European country in which Davis’s firm was working. The three were among a few dozen people dining at a restaurant during an official Senate trip.

Davis was a paid consultant to the governing party in Montenegro and had advised it on a just-ratified independence referendum, Salter said. That was why he was at the dinner, he added.

Afterward, a group from the dinner took boats out to a nearby yacht moored in the Adriatic Sea, where champagne and pastries were served, partly in honor of McCain’s 70th birthday.

Perhaps an intrepid reporter would like to ask McCain whether that will have any influence on his decision making as president. Especially since the Balkans are blowing up again at this very minute. Via FDL

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