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McCain’s mess is not limited to sex

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MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson had a fascinating take this morning on the controversy surrounding John McCain and telecom lobbyist Vicky Iseman. In this case, that’s not a compliment.

“Well, look at the lede! It’s about sex! It’s about John McCain had an affair! That’s what this story is about, which is actually a pretty outrageous nail upon which to hang a story, it seems to me, in 2008, at a time when we’ve all sort of agreed that true or not, it’s none of our business. I mean that is the contract in journalism we all sort of signed after Monica…. I’m not flacking for McCain. I instinctively jump to the defense of anyone whose private life is violated.”

There’s an awful lot wrong with this. First, Tucker really only seems to “instinctively jump” when the target is someone he likes, making his vaunted principles look kind of silly. Second, there’s a “contract in journalism” that mandates that every politician’s private life is off-limits, even if he or she is engaged in inappropriate behavior? Really? When did they come to this conclusion? The entire media establishment tried to destroy a sitting president over a victim-less affair, and now they’ve decided, “We better not extend similar treatment to anyone ever again, regardless of merit”?

And third, possible adultery makes the McCain/Iseman story sexy, but it’s a controversy that goes beyond talk of who slept with whom.

I’m aware that human nature includes some prurient interests. For that matter, I can also appreciate the irony of the conservative “family values” party being led by an adulterer. (Though, let’s not forget, regardless of anything we learned from the NYT this morning, John McCain is still the first admitted adulterer to ever even try to seek a major party’s presidential nomination.)

But to look at this controversy with sex at the fore is a mistake. At that point, it becomes a debate over whether McCain’s private life is fair game, and whether someone who already cheated on his first wife can still claim the “character” mantle if he cheated on his second wife.

But the key to remember here is that, unlike the Lewinsky, Foley, or Craig sex scandals, there are legitimate questions in this story about whether McCain did legislative favors for the woman he’s alleged to have been involved with.

[At this morning’s press conference, when] one reporter asked him about one of the key details in the Times piece — that McCain, then the chairman of the Senate commerce committee, had written a letter to the Federal Communications Commission on behalf of one of Iseman’s clients — he responded: “On the ‘letters’ to the FCC. Interestingly, this was brought up in the year 2000 by The New York Times. I wrote a letter because the FCC, which usually makes a decision within 400 days, had gone almost 800 days. In the letter, I said I’m not telling you how to make a decision, I’m just telling you that you should move forward and make a decision on this issue. And I believe that was appropriate. And the former chairman of the FCC at the time in 2000 said that was more than an appropriate role for me to play as chairman of the oversight committee.”

While it’s true that the letter did not request a particular decision (more about that below), it’s not true that the FCC chairman saw no issue with the letter.

As The Boston Globe reported way back in 2000, William Kennard, the FCC chair at the time, had immediately objected to McCain’s December 10, 1999 letter, replying four days later that it was “highly unusual” and that he was “concerned” at what effect McCain’s letter might have on the decision process.

An earlier letter from McCain on the issue in November had not brought a similar rebuke. And McCain frequently wrote letters to the FCC requesting that it act on particular issues. But the December letter was remarkable for its insistence and call for each of the five commissioners to explain why they hadn’t come to a decision.

McCain’s comments today also skirted the issue of whether Iseman had sent information to his office for help in drafting the letter, as the Times reports, and elides discussion of the letter’s effect. Iseman represented Paxson Communications, which was pushing for the FCC decision because it would have cleared the way for Paxson to buy a Pittsburgh television station.

Best of all, one of the lawyers involved with the matter in 1999, said McCain’s letter was “improper, unethical, violated FCC rules barring such contacts on pending FCC matters, and appeared designed to assist a major contributor.”

Maybe there’s a compelling explanation for all of this, maybe not. But it’s not just a story about sex.

Comments

  • CJ

    says:

    “I wrote a letter because the FCC, which usually makes a decision within 400 days, had gone almost 800 days.”

    Does the FCC usually make a decision within 400 days?

    If so, if we take the personal connections out of it, if the Chairman of the applicable oversight committee becomes aware, through reasonable and ethical channels, that the FCC is taking an unusually long time to do their job on a specific case (as opposed to most or all cases), is it appropriate for him to contact the FCC about that case?

    Here’s my concern. If a politician performs an unusual favor for a major contributor, then that’s bad. On the other hand, if the politician performs an act that is a reasonable act in his capacity as a Senator or committee chair, then the personal connections may not matter so much.

    I’m still trying to determine if there’s any there there. Please help me out if you can…trying to keep an open mind.

  • telecommie

    says:

    Does the FCC usually make a decision within 400 days?

    Unless it is a case with a statutory deadline, the FCC decides whenever the FCC decides.

    The FCC has a major docket called “Developing a Unified Intercarrier Compensation Regime.” It was opened on April 27, 2001.

    It is still pending on February 21, 2008.

    McCain knows the FCC takes widely varying amounts of time to resolve issues and dockets. He is banking (no Silverado pun intended) on the public thinking 800 days (or 400 for that matter) sounds like a long time, and so he was just trying to move that damned government along. It isn’t that simple.

  • RonChusid

    says:

    If this story is to continue and harm McCain it will be over the legislative issues.

    Unless someone comes up with an incriminating red dress, the accusations of an affair will die out if everyone denies it.

    It is easy to imagine an older male being enticed by a woman to do favors for her but possibly not take it beyond that. However, if the favors should represent a violation of ethics, we have a story. It won’t be as exciting a story as adultery, but it could have significance in a general election campaign. Obama’s record on ethics reform would present quite a contrast if McCain is guilt of granting favors to a lobbyist.

  • 2Manchu

    says:

    “McCain’s mess is not limited to sex”

    Yeah, but it’s juicier than just “corrupt Republican poltician”.

    I mean c’mon, we get those four for a dollar.

  • palmbeachmaven

    says:

    When is someone in the press going to question whether Cindy McCain is up to being First Lady? Six months ago, Mrs McCain admitted that she suffers from brain damage.

    From a 9/07 McCain interview by Paul Alexander published in More:

    “In conversation, she will occasionally have trouble remembering certain facts, especially from the recent past, and if you look closely you realize she cannot make her right hand into a complete fist, which has affected her handwriting, if not her ability to grasp a gearshift knob. “It’s not bad,” she says, describing the damage to her hand. “I can function. I have short-term memory loss. I can remember all the major details of my life, but I sometimes can’t remember what happened last week.”

    Cindy McCain is not even sure she wants to be First Lady. From the same interview:

    “Do you want to be first lady?”

    She stops, as if surprised. She takes a long time to answer. “I don’t know,” she says at last. “I’m not trying to dodge the question.” Another pause. “I don’t know.” she stops again. Then she seems to resolve something in her mind. “If given the opportunity, I would do my absolute very best to do the best job I could.” Yet another pause. “I don’t know.” One last beat. “You know, I’ve never gotten close to that question, because I don’t want to jinx it.”

    I think Cindy McCain’s health problems are probably worse than what has been disclosed to date. Last October, she was on crutches because she fell in a Phoenix grocery store

    I haven’t seen Cindy McCain speak longer than three minutes at a time since the campaign began.

    Being First Lady is a daunting and demanding job. Is John McCain making his wife pay a heavy price, her health, to satisfy his political ambition?

  • James Dillon

    says:

    But it kind of is just a story about sex, isn’t it? Whatever the propriety of the Paxson letter may be, that issue is nine years old and has been a matter of public record for quite a while. So what new information does the NYT’s article add to the mix except for the alleged affair with Iseman, which both parties deny and which even the NYT’s anonymous sources can’t confirm as more than a suspicion among his campaign staffers in 2000?

    The more I look at this story, the less compelling it appears.

  • Lance

    says:

    I think the NYTs should have avoided the whole sex/romance issue. Now Faux Spews (I get bombarded by it at work) is attacking the whole ‘they didn’t have sex’ angle, when in fact all NYTs said is that the aides kept this woman away from Senator McCain during the 2000 presidential nomination campaign because they ‘thought there was a romantic feeling’ there.

    People flirt long before they have sex. At least those in their forties and sixties.

  • palmbeachmaven

    says:

    Read Larry King’s 2005 interview with Cindy McCain about the damage caused by her stroke:

    …
    KING: What has been the after effect? I know there’s some things, there’s paralysis? What’s your after effect?

    MCCAIN: Now — I had some speech problems, some paralysis, some difficulty walking, but the most difficult thing for me now is my memory. I have had a pretty good memory loss, and difficulty now trying to pull things together. You know, it’s frustrating.

    …
    KING: Did you think you were going to die, Cindy?

    MCCAIN: I was sure I was going to die. When my friends left the hospital and before my husband was in New York when it happened, and I was alone in the hospital, I was sure. What kept going through my mind was is I hadn’t said enough to those that I loved. I just couldn’t…

    …
    MCCAIN: I was the one at home that everyone came to to program their computers, fix their phones, do anything electrical, technical, anything on the computer. I can’t get near it now. I’m overwhelmed by it.

    And it’s weird for me. And I might also say, I suffer from migraines also. And your last caller that called in — and I just had an episode about a week and a half ago, where I didn’t know, I thought I was having another stroke. It was a different kind of…

    KING: Has the senator been very sympathetic?

    MCCAIN: Yes. And I — please don’t — let me explain that. He was very confused in the beginning. He didn’t — like everyone in the family, how could it happen to my wife? I’m 18 years older than she is. It doesn’t happen to someone that’s younger than you are. So on his behalf, I think he’s trying to understand all this. It’s a lot for him to take in.

  • oldtree

    says:

    You just nailed it. What would the world ‘o’ media do without a story that they can ignore the law breaking part and emphasize the sex? One wonders if journalism will survive the medium.

  • Danp

    says:

    Lance (8): You won’t hear this on Fox, but the NYT article also said this:

    Both (two of McCain’s former associattes) said Mr. McCain acknowledged behaving innappropriately and pledged to keep his distance from Ms. Iseman.”

    So, it’s not just that they thought something was going on. He “acknowledged” it.

  • James Dillon

    says:

    Danp,

    I think I addressed this in the other thread, but your assertion is quite clearly wrong. The NYT article states in the fourth paragraph that both McCain and Iseman both unequivocally denied that their relationship was romantic in nature; the “inappropriate” behavior that McCain acknowledged dealt with the perception that he risked creating by his friendship with a lobbyist, as is made quite clear in the context of the Times article, and not with any of the more salacious allegations.

  • petorado

    says:

    The relationship between McCain and Iseman is good tabloid fodder, but what strikes me as the real offense is the allegation that McCain twisted government for the personal benefit and profit of a friend. Having witnessed lobbying firsthand, lobbyists do provide perspective and information to lawmakers who have laws and rulings placed in front of them that they don’t have much knowledge of. That McCain was influenced by a lobbyist is far from being a sin.

    But that McCain had developed a personal relationship with someone and had used his political position to influence on a friends behalf is the wrong part. Politicians shouldn’t force the hand of the bureaucracy to do personal favors that may not be in the best interest of the nation as a whole. That’s the sin in this mess.

  • charles

    says:

    …Unless someone comes up with an incriminating red dress…

    Finding the stained red dress in the closet would just be dog bites man. The stained *wetsuit* in the closet, now that would be something to write about.

  • Danp

    says:

    James Dillon (15) Sorry I missed your previous response. But I disagree. I am quoting directly, (except for the part in parentheses) from the 37th paragraph (page A17 of the nationally distributed edition). There were six paragraphs in the whole story that had any mention of a romantic relationship, and the portion I quoted is in the third paragraph of the only three-consecutive-paragraph part of the story that deals with this romantic relationship.

  • SteveIL

    says:

    Is there some “liberal” here who is actually ever going to tell the truth? The entire media establishment tried to destroy a sitting president over a victim-less affair,… That sitting President lied to a grand jury, and publicly to the American people.

    The rest of this post is nothing more than the bottom-feeder level of “journalism” that was on display at the Slimes

    But go ahead and keep trying with it. I am thoroughly entertained.

  • Danp

    says:

    James Dillon: In the online version of the NYT, the quote was on page 4 at the top. Here’s the link:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/us/politics/21mccain.html?pagewanted=4&_r=1&ei=5088&en=33711052dbdd623d&ex=1361250000&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

    Now that I have read your response from the previous thread, let me address the non-denial denial as well. I should have been more careful with my words and said his “response to the NYT story” was a non-denial denial (also at the bottom of the above link). The fourth paragraph denial is interesting though. A competent journalist would never write, “John Doe admits guilt…” without actually talking to the source. But McCain denies ever talking to the Times, so my guess is that this denial came from either a PR rep or his lawyer. And I do think journalists accept second hand denials.

  • libra

    says:

    there’s a “contract in journalism” that mandates that every politician’s private life is off-limits, even if he or she is engaged in inappropriate behavior? Really? When did they come to this conclusion? — CB

    Steve, he’s preempted you there. He says:
    […] we’ve all sort of agreed that true or not, it’s none of our business. I mean that is the contract in journalism we all sort of signed *after Monica*….

    Shorter answer would have been “when it’s convenient”. And, obviously, the NYT folks did not sign any such “contracts”. I wonder if anyone still remembers — looong way “after Monica”, BTW. Last year, I think — the biiiig spread NYT did about the Clintons. Counting the hours the two spent together and apart. And, when apart, with whom. And why. That one, also, had been thick on innuendo and unnamed sources but thin on evidence and attributable quotes.

    How much money Grandpa got from/through the lobbyist bimbo is a fact, which can be verified (and which directly contradicts his claim that he’s the one who never gets money from lobbyists). What they did — or didn’t do — otherwise… If NYT *had* any sort of proof, it should have included it. If it hadn’t, then *that part* of the story might have been better off left out entirely. *Just as *that whole* Clinton “story” should have never seen the light of day.

    Mind you… Should Grandpa Mc float some similar garbage (more innuendo than facts) against his Dem opponent in general, then his Dem opponent would be excused for not just debunking the story immediately, but, reciprocally, floating one about Grandpa, just as bad.