UPDATE # 5 Maybe the Times was really trying to influence a stockholder election and that would make more sense than any other explanation. I don’t know why anyone would want to invest a half billion dollars in that turkey but I’m not an investment banker.
UPDATE #4 This WaPo story tries to make a mountain out of a molehill and seems inconsequential. McCain chaired the Commerce Committee and had to deal with these matters. The final sentence of the story points out that the deal he is accused of trying to facilitate never happened ! More Democrat partisan stuff. Even the Times is acknowledging that the story has backfired. My sentiments are pretty well expressed here.
UPDATE #3: David Brooks now has a column about the McCain story and the last paragraph is ominous.
At his press conference Thursday, McCain went all-in. He didn’t just say he didn’t remember a meeting about Iseman. He said there was no meeting. If it turns out that there is evidence of an affair and a meeting, then his presidential hopes will be over. If no evidence surfaces, his campaign will go on and it will be clear that there were members of his old inner circle consumed by viciousness and mendaciousness.
UPDATE # 2: Bob Bennett, the lawyer who represented Bill Clinton in the Paula Jones case, was retained by McCain when he learned that the NY Times was working on this story. He was interviewed on Laura Ingrahm this morning. He says they answered all of the Times’ questions, provided lots of information that never made it into the story and the story is a smear job, pure and simple. He also informed us that he was the Senate Ethics Committee counsel for the Keating scandal back when McCain was a freshman Senator and was caught up in it. He reported to the committee that McCain was clear and should be dropped from the investigation. They choose to keep him involved to avoid having the Keating affair a pure Democrat scandal. The story is a disgrace, apparently published prematurely because The New Republic is coming out with a piece about the Times investigation. Note that the TNR story is about the Times not McCain. We have reporters writing stories about each other. Talk about politicians’ hubris!
UPDATE: The Senator has responded to the Times’ smear by simply saying “The story is not true.” His staff has released a statement of facts that points out he was acting appropriately as chairman of the committee that oversees the FCC which, in the Clinton Administration, was acting as though it would ignore clear Congressional direction. In other words, the Clinton FCC was the problem, not the lobbyist.
Well, McCain declared himself the GOP nominee last night and today, regular as clockwork, the NY Times is ready with the first smear. Of course, “anonymous sources” are prominently displayed.
Ethics. Shmethics.
On the other hand, maybe McCain is the source to try to win the “youth vote.”