This morning on Mid Stream Radio Jazz and I were discussing the NYT piece on McCain. Now the press has for the most part been pretty easy on St John. I said that the fall out from the Times article might be that reporters and other might start looking at and reporting about McCain's relationships with lobbyists.No sooner was the show over the Michael Isikoff piece hit the wires. Since then it has been almost non stop. The latest is this:
Files and McCain Letter Show Effort to Keep Loophole
WASHINGTON — In late 1998, Senator John McCain sent an unusually blunt letter to the head of the Federal Communications Commission, warning that he would try to overhaul the agency if it closed a broadcast ownership loophole.So it's now becoming obvious that St John of McCain was not only never a saint but a liar as well. This observation from Steve Soto:
The letter, and two later ones signed by Mr. McCain, then chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, urged the commission to abandon plans to close a loophole vitally important to Glencairn Ltd., a client of Vicki Iseman, a lobbyist. The provision enabled one of the nation’s largest broadcasting companies, Sinclair, to use a marketing agreement with Glencairn, a far smaller broadcaster, to get around a restriction barring single ownership of two television stations in the same city.
At a news conference on Thursday, Mr. McCain denounced an article in The New York Times that described concerns by top advisers a decade ago about his ties to Ms. Iseman, a partner at the firm Alcalde & Fay. He said he never had any discussions with his advisers about Ms. Iseman and never did any favors for any lobbyist.
One of the McCain campaign’s statements about his dealings with Ms. Iseman was challenged by news accounts on Friday. In discussing letters he wrote regulators about a deal involving another of Ms. Iseman’s clients, Lowell W. Paxson, the campaign had said the senator had never spoken to her or anyone from the company. But Mr. McCain acknowledged in a 2002 deposition that he had sent the letters after meeting with Mr. Paxson.
If McCain is revealed to be just another politician whose public persona of integrity is a well-crafted lie, it plays into the hands of the Obama campaign, and helps sell their narrative. Once you tear down the McCain persona, he is nothing more that John McBush, a third term for the worst eight-year period in our country's modern history.It's time for Obama to quit going after Hillary and time for Hillary to quit comparing Obama to Bush. They should both be looking toward November and be going after the saint that isn't.
