McCain-Lobbyist story: a sucking chest wound?

Tom Maertens

One Republican talking head after another is appearing on TV to excoriate the NYT's "despicable" story on St. John McCain and a lobbyist. The strategy is clearly to make the NYT, a right-wing bugaboo, the story. Except that now a number of other scribblers are getting into the act.

The Washington Post's original story focused more on lobbyist favors and less on the woman who looks like the current Mrs. McCain. Those two stories and the apoplectic reaction from the Pillsbury Doughboy and the like, sent the munchkins searching thru their files for McCain stories.

U.S. News and World Report printed a six-page expose from 2007 that clearly showed McCain was at least a hypocrite. The Huffington Post and other blogs weighed in, including a piece by Cliff Schecter about the "real" McCain.

Once a candidate's supposed sexual dalliances enter the public dialogue, people with long memories jump in. Here's Matt Yglesias from The Atlantic:

Obviously, I don't know whether or not McCain had sex with Iseman. I suppose by "what the meaning of the word 'is' is" standards, he didn't even deny having had sex with Iseman. Certainly it'd be a bit rich of McCain to get outraged that anyone would even suggest that he might engage in sexual improprieties. After all, it's well known that he repeatedly cheated on his first wife Carol, of a number of years, with a variety of women, before eventually dumping her for a much-younger heiress whose family fortune was able to help finance his political career. That's well known, I should say, except to the electorate, who would probably find that this sort of behavior detracts from McCain's "character" appeal.

McCain of late has put his wife up front in his campaign appearances, including at his press conference denying all. So she became part of the story, including her past drug addiction and her admission that she stole drugs from a non-profit she founded.

Round two of revelations started with the Washington Post's story on how McCain's campaign is run by lobbyists, as is his fund-raising. The Post continued the assault on McCain's credibility with a story that he "misrepresented" (or maybe lied) about contacts with "Bud" Paxson, on whose plane he rode. Newsweek also found the same hole in McCain's story.

Not surprisingly, there are more stories in the archives about how McCain intervened for other clients, including from the Boston Globe. It turns out also that McCain had been criticized for his interventions on behalf of clients even by the chairman of the FCC.

The NYT got back into the story with a follow-up on how McCain lobbied the FCC on behalf of Vicki Iseman's client, Sinclair/Glencairn Ltd..

The blogs have gotten into the act as well. "Dengre" at DailyKos has put together a very persuasive narrative about McCain and Jack Abramoff, a story that clearly must have more tentacles than have been revealed so far.

Once the story line changes from McCain-the-straight-shooter to McCain-the-lobbyists'-friend, you can expect even more rummaging thru the archives.

The journalist-friendly McCain seems to have departed from his usual custom of providing easy access for journalists to having his lawyer, Bob Bennett, respond to reporters. That raises the question of why McCain hired a criminal lawyer (in December) in response to an upcoming article in a newspaper. Is this potentially a criminal matter rather than a political matter?

Just asking, you understand.

So, sucking chest wound? Chinese water torture? Death by a thousand cuts?