Welcome to day three of the John McCain lobbyist scandal. Now that we have a little breathing room since the NY Times story broke, the heart of the matter is clearly shown (like the title the NYT put out originally). This isn't about the possibility of an extra-marital affair, it is about highlighting the fact that McCain is just another crooked politician in Washington, the mirror-opposite of what he claims to be. Yesterday he denied the entire story, desperately trying to hang on to his image. Unfortunately for him, when denying he contradicted himself from sworn testimony just a few years ago.
Oops:
Just hours after the Times's story was posted, the McCain campaign issued a point-by-point response that depicted the letters as routine correspondence handled by his staff—and insisted that McCain had never even spoken with anybody from Paxson or Alcalde & Fay about the matter. "No representative of Paxson or Alcalde & Fay personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC," the campaign said in a statement e-mailed to reporters.
But that flat claim seems to be contradicted by an impeccable source: McCain himself. "I was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue," McCain said in the Sept. 25, 2002, deposition obtained by NEWSWEEK. "He wanted their approval very bad for purposes of his business. I believe that Mr. Paxson had a legitimate complaint."
While McCain said "I don't recall" if he ever directly spoke to the firm's lobbyist about the issue—an apparent reference to Iseman, though she is not named—"I'm sure I spoke to [Paxson]." McCain agreed that his letters on behalf of Paxson, a campaign contributor, could "possibly be an appearance of corruption"—even though McCain denied doing anything improper.
McCain's subsequent letters to the FCC—coming around the same time that Paxson's firm was flying the senator to campaign events aboard its corporate jet and contributing $20,000 to his campaign—first surfaced as an issue during his unsuccessful 2000 presidential bid. William Kennard, the FCC chair at the time, described the sharply worded letters from McCain, then chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, as "highly unusual."
My hat is off to Newsweek for uncovering his sworn testimony from 2002. Isn't it amazing what a little bit of legwork can net you? Cheers to another chunk of the "maverick" being stripped away from the real McCain that we will all be able to see when deciding who the next President should be.
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