John Weaver Is Not Jane Doe

by dday

Apparently, the talking point that the broadcast media all settled on today is that the McCain/Vicki Iseman story is irresponsible because it’s based entirely on unnamed sources.

Um, people?

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.

Weaver very simply said that Iseman was involved in the campaign and that could hurt McCain’s image as a straight-talking reformer. This doesn’t presume an intimate relationship, it presumes a relationship with a lobbyist. And this is a big problem.

Some wingnut welfare recipients are calling this the words of a “disgruntled staffer.” Some Republican hack on The Situation Room was asked directly “Do you mean John Weaver?” and she said “It hasn’t been disclosed.” Well, you know, yes it has.

And the floodgates ought to open once you recognize that McCain’s campaign and professional life are crawling with lobbyists:

McCain’s campaign staff had more lobbyists on it than any other back in June. And, after the staff massacre in July, the person he hired to be his new campaign manager (resurrecting his position from the failed 2000 campaign)? Uber-lobbyist Rick Davis. Who is Rick Davis? Try this on for starters:

“So now that very same Rick Davis will be taking over as campaign manager. Who is he? Fittingly for the most lobbyist-infested campaign in the race (on either side), Davis is yet another lobbyist. Davis founded Davis, Manafort & Freedman, Inc., through which he served clients ranging from Nigerian dictator Gen. Sani Abacha to “mafia-like” Argentine legislator Alberto Pierri. Davis has had a long association with McCain — one tangled up in webs of special influence. In 1999, while Davis was working for McCain, two of his firm’s clients, COMSAT and SBC, “had major (and controversial) mergers pending before the Federal Communications Commission in 1999, and both mergers were approved.” The FCC was under the legislative oversight authority of McCain’s Commerce Committee, yet McCain refused to recuse himself from the proceedings.

Davis was also a central figure in McCain’s Reform Institute scandal, an under-reported affair in which the “Maverick” Senator used a nonprofit, tax-exempt “reform” organization to trade political favors for corporate cash.”

He had plenty of lobbyists on his campaign back in 2000, too. This is the real problem here, a huge dent to the Straight Talk Express’ image. This is why Mitt Romney’s throwing up repeatedly today.

I agree that the focus ought to be on the fact that someone who claimed he’s completely free and clear of the culture of corruption you’d expect from a guy who’s spent 24 years in Washington is getting caught.

UPDATE: Yglesias:

Basically, in exchange for money and freebies, McCain sought to intervene in a federal regulatory process in favor of a company that had provided him with tens of thousands of dollars in cash and services. He could try to plead naiveté, but in light of the hot water he got into with the Keating Five affair, which had the exactly same structure, he clearly knew what he was doing and knew that it was wrong. Now whether or not some guy gets to buy some TV station in Pittsburgh or not isn’t a big deal as such, but it’s an example of how dubious McCain’s “straight talk” persona is. What’s more, I think we can all agree that the subversion of the basic functioning of the federal government (see, e.g., US Attorneys scandal, FEMA, etc.) has been a major problem during the Bush years and we see here that McCain takes a Bush-like attitude to the integrity of these processes.

Yep.

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