It Depends On Your Definition of Lobbyist

According to Senator McCain, just because your campaign is being run by lobbyists that doesn’t mean you are still not anti-lobbyist. The straight-talker now wants us to believe that his lobbyists are not like the other ones populating Washington. That’s right his lobbyists are honorable and he is never influenced by their pressure. While for many non-Christian wing-nuts the issue is not whether McCain did or did not have relations with that woman, it is purely political and whether that woman had undue influence over the Senator. So according to the Senator, a lobbyist isn’t a lobbyist if they work for his campaign.

McCain attorney Robert S. Bennett played down the contradiction between the campaign's written answer and Paxson's recollection.

"We understood that he [McCain] did not speak directly with him [Paxson]. Now it appears he did speak to him. What is the difference?" Bennett said. "McCain has never denied that Paxson asked for assistance from his office. It doesn't seem relevant whether the request got to him through Paxson or the staff. His letters to the FCC concerning the matter urged the commission to make up its mind. He did not ask the FCC to approve or deny the application. It's not that big a deal."

The Paxson deal, coming as McCain made his first run for the presidency, has posed a persistent problem for the senator. The deal raised embarrassing questions about his dealings with lobbyists at a time when he had assumed the role of an ethics champion and opponent of the influence of lobbyists.

The two letters he wrote to the FCC in 1999 while he was chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee produced a rash of criticism and a written rebuke from the then-FCC chairman, who called McCain's intervention "highly unusual." McCain had repeatedly used Paxson's corporate jet for his campaign and accepted campaign contributions from the broadcaster and his law firm.[1]

My question is how did Ms. Iseman get such complete access to Senator McCain? I am a skeptic granted but I know that for many men there are two types of women in the world the ones they have slept with and the ones they have yet to sleep with. It isn’t important to me whether Senator McCain slept with that lobbyist or any other lobbyist, politicians probably should sleep with them because then we wouldn’t end up being the only ones screwed. My main concern is the fact that John McCain has made a career of promoting himself as anti-lobbyist and now we see just as with all of McCain’s other claims to fame this one has no merits either. A lobbyist is a lobbyist and the sooner the Senator can acknowledge that the better. The most troubling thing about this whole affair are the lies starting to come out of the McCain camp. Not the lies about any sort of tryst between the Senator and Ms. Iseman, but the lies concerning his actions on her behalf and involving her. First there was the lies concerning meeting with Mr. Paxson on behalf of Ms. Iseman, why would that man have any reason to lie and say he met with Senator McCain when he didn’t? The second is the lies about whether his campaign was concerned enough about the relationship to have to have a discussion with the Senator and Ms. Iseman, obviously if it gets to this level someone thinks there is a problem. Why would his campaign staff lie?

I think it is time for Senator McCain to do some “straight talking” concerning this whole affair. I have a feeling that we have not heard the last of the lies from Senator McCain on this subject. The thing about lying that any good liar knows is that you just have to keep telling more lies to cover the first batch. The more Mr. McCain’s campaign tries to spin the lies and inconsistencies the more damning they appear. What is odd is that Mr. McCain wrote the letters after receiving 20,000 dollars from those on whose behalf he wrote the letters, but there was no quid pro quo? Not to worry Republicans the Senator has already gotten a bounce from Republicans following these stories, it appears that the Party of family values and morality obviously do not consider lying and bribery, not to mention adultery immoral. Why am I not surprised?

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/22/AR2008022202634.html?hpid%3Dtopnews&sub=AR