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Thursday, February 21, 2008
A ‘hit job’ on McCain?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The story rumored to be in the works throughout the latter stages of the Republican presidential campaign — that John McCain had an improper relationship with a female lobbyist about the time he ran for President in 2000 — popped into the open Wednesday. It’s published today in The New York Times. McCain’s lawyer, Robert Bennett, insists it’s “shameless” and “entirely unsourced” and a “real hit job.” McCain at a press conference today said “it’s not true.”
Here are a few of the first paragraphs to give you the flavor of the story:
“A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.
“When news organizations reported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist’s client, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement.
“Mr. McCain, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, both say they never had a romantic relationship. But to his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity.”
The story then goes on to revive the Keating Five savings and loan scandal and suggests that McCain had not been true to the ethical standard he set for himself and the image he cultivated “as the scourge of special interests, a crusader for stricter ethics and campaign finance rules, a man of honor chastened by a brush with shame.”
It’s impossible, based on the Times account, to know whether there was anything improper in McCain’s relationship with the lobbyist.
The problem is that two men — a powerful public official and a lobbyist — can have an “intimate” converstion in a restaurant and the assumption is that it’s about legislation. It may be improper, but the immediate assumption is not that it’s romantic. If the lobbyist is female, and especially one who’s attractive, the first reaction is otherwise — that it’s personal.
Evangelist Billy Graham had a policy throughout his ministry that he would always have an aide or another person present when he was in a car or room with a woman other than his wife. That’s not a practical policy for a political figure, especially since it disadvantages the access of a female lobbyist to a male power figure or, in the case of a Nancy Pelosi, the male lobbyist.
But certainly a political figure who repeatedly engages in behavior that seems too familiar and that invites on-lookers to question its propriety, should heed the warnings — and return to the Billy Graham rule. Or, failing that, if his conduct begins to disminish respect for the public office he holds, he should step down.
A hit job? I’d not be particularly concerned about The Times story yet. It was bound to come out. Better now than later.
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