In the Washington Post followup to the NYT piece on John McCain’s murky relationship with lobbyist, a name is now attached to one of the previously unnamed aides who confronted Vicki Iseman and told her to stay away from the senator.
John Weaver, who was McCain’s closest confidant until leaving his current campaign last year, said he met with Vicki Iseman at the Center Cafe at Union Station and urged her to stay away from McCain. Association with a lobbyist would undermine his image as an opponent of special interests, aides had concluded.The moralist wing of the party is outraged, particularly Bay Buchanan, who was with the currently suspended Romney campaign. She was frothing at mouth last night on CNN’s AC360, stoking the fundie fires. She obviously thinks her man Mitt would have walked away with the nomination had this story dropped back before Florida.…McCain, after his unsuccessful 2000 campaign, has emerged as the front-runner for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. His reputation as a crusader for Washington reform — forged during almost 30 years in the Senate — is based largely on his stinging critiques of the role played by lobbyists. He routinely decries earmarks, or pet projects, inserted into legislation. He has repeatedly maintained that he has “never, ever done a favor for any lobbyist or special interest group.” It was this reputation that McCain’s closest aides sought to protect.
“We were running a campaign about reforming Washington, and her showing up at events and saying she had close ties to McCain was harmful,” one aide said.
Considering this is the party of Mark Foley, Larry Craig, David Vitter and a host of Republican Sexual Hypocrites, the above is a howler. David Gergen was on as well, and he later called out Bay on God’s Own Party’s hypocrisy. That’s after the jump.
COOPER: Bay Buchanan, I have got to ask you. As you were working for the Romney campaign, would this have made a difference when you were with the campaign? I mean, how would this have changed things had that story broken months ago?BUCHANAN: Oh. Oh, there’s no question it would have impacted. No question it would have impacted our primaries.
We — we — you know, conservatives are — we believe that we are the family value party. We believe it seriously. We expect our candidates to live up to those values, not just to talk about them and expect us to vote for them, and not be there really when it counts.
And our — we have a basic belief. If can you lie to your wife and your children, then the voter doesn’t have a prayer. And, so, that’s where we stand. We assume our candidates are that way, unless we — we have reason to believe otherwise.
Yes, and it’s the grassroots that McCain will need if he has prayer of winning in the general. He simply cannot win if they stay home AND he loses independents on the lobbying ethics front.GERGEN: What I — what I also feel with my friend, Bay, I must say, I do agree with the notion — listen, before we get too high and mighty about the Republican Party, I don’t remember a lot of outrage in the Republican Party over the question about their — the House members and pages. You know, we have — let’s not — I don’t think we ought to get too high and mighty about this.
BUCHANAN: No. No, no, no.
GERGEN: But, you know, but…
(CROSSTALK)
BUCHANAN: David, look what happened in the general — in the general election as a result of that scandal. Republicans were — were decimated.
GERGEN: They were decimated. But I — you know, at the leadership level, there was an awful lot of hoofing and hawing and sort of not wanting to get to the bottom of it.
(CROSSTALK)
BUCHANAN: Absolutely true. And that’s why the — the grassroots really, really turned on them.
Ally on the conservative side of the blogosphere, Joe Murray, former staff attorney for the American Family Association, thinks McCain could be toast solely on the ethics/lobbying front:
The possibility Mr. McCain may have had an affair is not the driving force behind this inquest; far from it. Rather, the idea that this maverick, a man who bucked his party to restore the people’s trust in their government, could have pulled strings for inappropriate reasons is an innuendo that could topple Mr. McCain.Deflated is an understatement. He’s been trying to win over The Base of bible beaters since he declared the race over, and the professional “Christian” set (Daddy D notably not among them) had begun to circle the wagons around the Arizona senator.If this is the tip of the iceberg, it is clear Mr. McCain has assumed the role of Edward John Smith. There will be no rebounding from this betrayal of trust; no rehabilitation.
On the left Mr. McCain will be pummeled by Barack Obama, a man who will cast Mr. McCain as exhibit A in his case for change, and on the right Mr. McCain will be greeted by a deflated base.
Daddy D recently endorsed Huckabee — do you think he knew the NYT piece might drop? Who knows.
Even more troublesome for the McCain camp is the fact that Mr. Huckabee is still buzzing around the mule and Mr. Romney can still jump back in this race (he only suspended his campaign). Conservatives were never enthusiastic about a McCain nomination and this could be the crack in the armor.***While it is too premature to begin drafting Mr. McCain’s last will and testament, considerations of stepping down should be entertained.
And here’s an added bit of entertainment to the scandal. Last night the McCain released a tepid statement that dodged the sexual allegations. It came from his press officer, Jill Hazelbaker. Who is she?
Apparently John McCain hires only the best, brightest and most ethical for his team. Check out the diary John McCain’s Integrity in Action: Hiring Concern Troll to be Communications Director. She was busted by Blue Jersey’s Juan Melli astroturfing away from an IP addy for the Tom Kean Jr. campaign, and was later caught by the MSM lying about it.
During the 2006 Senate campaign in New Jersey, Jill Hazelbaker worked for Republican candidate Tom Kean, Jr. Juan Melli, the founder of Blue Jersey, noticed that the site had a lot of concern trolls. You know, the kind of commentator who says he is a “lifelong liberal,” but he just can’t vote for Menendez due to ethics concerns. Unfortunately for Hazelbaker, the concern trolls all came from the Kean campaign’s IP address. Indeed, Juan showed that one troll posted information that had not yet been published, leading to his belief (though it certainly cannot be proven) that Hazelbaker herself may have posted the comments. She after all, was in a position to know the information, and a low-level intern would not have been.
107 Responses to “McCain and the lobbyist: the final straw for the GOP Base?”
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I’ve already read the funniest comment that we’ll probably hear about this scandal: “Republicans are ecstatic that this affair involves an adult woman.”
Don’t know if it’s the final straw… The conservative goose-stepper who blogs for our local paper is already dismissing this as old news and/or completely unimportant. I think they’ll all fall behind McCain, no matter what; in a couple of weeks, they’ll insist that having an affair with a lobbyist is a godly and holy thing to do…
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/1994-09-08/news/opiate-for-the-mrs
Pam, the McCains have ALOT of stories they want to keep quiet.
Well, let’s see: in the past week we’ve had:
1 - Some guy claiming that he smoked crack and performed fellatio on Barack Obama back in 1999;
2 - The resurfacing of the rumors reported in The Times of London concerning Hillary Clinton and her personal assistant; and now
3- The New York Times reporting that John McCain may have had an inappropriate relationship with a lobbyist sometime around 2000.
We’ve got a trifecta, folks; everyone has rumors of a sex scandal! Do they all cancel each other out, or does the first one that can be corroborated take precedence?
http://www.usvetdsp.com/mcaind…
It’s not as if McCain doesn’t have a history of this sort of thing…
And Dana, I think it’s safe to say the first story is more about a “crackpot”!
Re: Bay Buchanan- first, I agree; she was LIVID last night. But there’s always the idea of her man Mitt “pulling a Lieberman”- declaring himself an Independant and popping back into the race! Since his “deep Republican values” seemed to be under constant revision, it would be rather suiting!
McCain has denied the affair without qualification.
I think this could be the event that brings the conservative base home for McCain. When the NY Slimes begins printing lies on its front page about the leading republican, we have entered another Rather-gate type moment.
It’s hard to see how this is anything but a positive for McCain. The most powerful left-wing newspaper in the country has just libeled him.
Conservatives will rally big time. Fair-minded independents will rally also. This certainly paints the Left into the same corner they were in with the Duke lacrosse case: lying for ideological reasons about an innocent man.
“We’ve got a trifecta, folks; everyone has rumors of a sex scandal! Do they all cancel each other out, or does the first one that can be corroborated take precedence?”
It never seems to balance out.
The perfect example is when Bill Clinton is being “prosecuted” in congress for a sexual affair (I know, it was supposed to be about “lying”, but let’s be honest - it was about the sex), and many of the gentlemen leading the prosecution had already had affairs, many of them multiple times, and several of them were in the middle of ongoing affairs.
But because they were Republicans, it was okay. Everyone knows Republicans stand for Family Values, even when they don’t…
Just like they did when the Repubs impeached Clinton for sexlying, right? Best scores he ever got for his presidency.
Usually, I’d say that what McCain does in his own time is his own business, but since he was carrying on this affair while he was impeaching Clinton for sexlying, I say “Unslip the dogs of war!” Something to remember when “Hillary Hate” is on the boil, especially from a lot of A list leftists.
#$%@! Strikethoughs should be on
sexlying.I like “sexlying”. I think it’s an excellent coinage that we can apply to mainstream Republicans and fundamentalists alike.
#$%@! Strikethoughs should be on
sexlying.Instead you have a nice new word which indicates how silly impeachment was in that case.
I kept reading it as “sexylying.”
Still, kudos on a great word invention, Blue Jean, even if it was by accident.
What, are we really supposed to believe that the Romney campaign didn;t know about this before? If Mitt didn’t have a closet full of his own skeletons he would have used this months ago. As for the base, this might not so much turn them away as be another reason not to work their tails off for a guy they really didn’t love anyway.
But the bigger question is how this will play with McCain’s other base, the national political reporters. If it gets them to stop running the last-honest-man puff pieces, it could be huge. On the other hand, if the NYT headline spin becomes the dominant story — “here’s a man who’s so virtuous he can’t even understand why people might get suspicious of him for sleeping with a lobbyist” — then it’s going to be a long five years.
In principle, I’m against dirty politics like this.
But in practice, I’m more against assholes who think torture is okay and want to bomb every country in the world.
Media circus, away!
“Just like they did when the Repubs impeached Clinton for sexlying, right?”
So Clinton actually had an affair but lied to get out of it in a deposition. This, apparently, is “sexlying.”
So McCain didn’t have an affair but the NY Slimes is lying and saying he did. Pam, not surprisingly, is publicizing the lie.
Can you come up with a name for this, bluejean?
3- The New York Times reporting that John McCain may have had an inappropriate relationship with a lobbyist sometime around 2000.
Yes, why on earth would the media believe that an admitted adulterer who dumped his first wife for a much younger heiress who was better for his political career would cheat on his current wife? I mean, he’s obviously a man of high moral standards, which is why he stood by Charles Keating during the savings and loan scandal. Hell, even the National Review knows McCain is dirty.
By the way, here’s the full statement from the McCain campaign:
Shorter McCain campaign: He did not have sex with that woman!
“So McCain didn’t have an affair but the NY Slimes is lying and saying he did. Pam, not surprisingly, is publicizing the lie.”
Yep. ‘Cause that’s just what the Left does over-and-over. Take some incredibly minor peccadillo, or even the mere hint of the possibility of a peccadillo and put all their energy into making that allegation The Most Important Event In The History Of Mankind, all to distract people from their own closeted skeletons…
…oh wait, it isn’t Democrats who do that, IT’S RETHUGS. And if they have to invent the scandal, they will. And they will spend millions trying to find one thing they can hang on somebody to discredit them, and in the process make the gutter they live in look like a penthouse.
But IOKIYAR…
So McCain didn’t have an affair but the NY Slimes is lying and saying he did.
I don’t know about the sex, Seroj, but we do know that McCain interfered with the FCC process on behalf of her organization after accepting payments from them.
So there’s that. Honestly the sex I couldn’t care about. The influence-peddling? Sort of shoots the “straight-talking maverick” right in the foot, doesn’t it?
Even if he never had sex with the lobbyist, for a senior citizen, the thrill of having a hot young(er) babe follow you around, hanging on your every word, is worth quite a bit.
Lemme give it a try; I’m out of Suduko puzzles. Hmmm…
Well, if you add an obscure reference to an unrelated past event (cough- *Duke Lacross!*), we could call it “Serojing”!
Can you come up with a name for this, bluejean?
Har-monication?
And my apologies if that was already a word and I plagerized!
It really kills me how everyone seems to have forgotten that this guy was one of the Keating Five. Apparently, it’s OK to help someone get away with cheating taxpayers out of billions of dollars as long as you keep your pants zipped.
Man, I was waiting for someone to come along with “but what about Obama’s gay sex & crack scandal”? I’m owed a daily lulz. Anybody else think it’s funny that despite Obama’s admitted history with cocaine, this guy claims that he chose crack? I guess because that’s the “blacker drug”… then again, the crack makes the “and then he let me near him sexually” way more plausible… yet still not at all.
I think the lobbying part of the McCain thing is a bigger deal, if it’s true. To me, whether he cheated on his wife or not is none of my damn business, and completely irrelevant to his qualifications for president. Same for anyone else. This would be a bigger deal if he was running on “values” but he’s generally not, and the values folks hated him wayyyy before this. He’s still the guy for the republicans… since this alleged liason is hetero, I don’t see tons of folks getting mad enough about this to vote for Huckabee en masse.
“Shorter McCain campaign: He did not have sex with that woman!”
I know that’s what he wanted to say, but then he was like, “Damn, I can’t say that!”
It really kills me how everyone seems to have forgotten that this guy was one of the Keating Five.
I tried to do a post about that but either it’s in moderation or it’s off in the ether, never to be seen again.
If it ever shows up, the link is to the National Review, of all places.
“…oh wait, it isn’t Democrats who do that, IT’S RETHUGS. And if they have to invent the scandal, they will.”
You seem to be irony impaired. On a day when the leading liberal newspaper libels the republican nominee for an affair he didn’t have, you whine that it’s republicans that smear people? O….K…..
Right or wrong, at least Clinton really did play Groucho Marx with his Intern’s vagina.
McCain didn’t, but you guys will lie and say he did anyway.
IMO it’s gonna be McCain who’s gonna get “smoked” in November, whatever the result of this story and others.
“You seem to be irony impaired.”
Well, no, it’s just that I’ve lived in these United States for the last 47-years. Reagan was NOT the first president I was aware of. I am really sick and tired of going through Yet Another Pointless Attack On A Democrat. And since it’s already well underway regarding Obama, it’s gonna be a tough year to avoid a virtually continual sense of irony…
“On a day when the leading liberal newspaper libels the republican nominee for an affair he didn’t have, you whine that it’s republicans that smear people?”
seroj, you don’t know any more of the “facts” than I or anyone else does. So whether this is libel or not remains highly unclear.
And calling the NY Times the “leading liberal newspaper” is a sick joke, given the well-worn knee pads strapped to many of the people contributing to that paper’s content, especially its editorials.
Regarding my “whine that it’s republicans that smear people”, what, did you just wake up from hibernation? Where the hell have you been for the last 20-years?…
McCain didn’t
You were there? It’s no secret that he’s no stranger to adultery. It’s not at all clear why you think he’s above it now.
It’s unseemly to make the accusation without any evidence, certainly, but little more than the both of us might expect from the modern salacious news media.
If they made the accusation with no evidence, that’s pretty lame. I suspect they have more than they let on, otherwise why did the McCain campaign try so hard to have the story spiked back in December?
“It’s unseemly to make the accusation without any evidence, certainly, but little more than the both of us might expect from the modern salacious news media.
If they made the accusation with no evidence, that’s pretty lame.”
Sounds like we agree on something. Now if you could work to convince Mike and Pam, we might be getting somewhere.
This “fuck off” is for Dana and seroj.
Fuck off.
TIA.
I love how the Republicans are getting all defensive about this. Waah, the liberal media is being mean to us, waah. You know, I almost don’t care if it’s all complete nonsense blow out of proportion; I’m glad McCain is being skewered in the press. How do you like a taste of your own medicine, assholes?
I am happy for McCain. This older fellow (I mean, he is way older than me) is able to attract the attention of a younger woman. He is then presumably able to get the manly hydraulics to perform when he needs it.
Clearly, this is a plus when considering qualifications for posting in the Oval Office, isn’t it?
“Clearly, this is a plus when considering qualifications for posting in the Oval Office, isn’t it?”
…now if he could only figure out an excuse for being photographed wearing a flightsuit…
Heh.
Replace “mean” with “lie about” and you’ve got it! And as for being defensive, I think it’s a blessing really when you have powerful enemies and those powerful enemies get caught with their pants down lying about you.
As for your being glad that McCain is being “skewered,” whether he actually had the affair or not, that’s just priceless. Thanks for being so honest.
I love seroj’s euphemism “inappropriate relationship”. It both glosses over the stark ethical violations of lobbyist-legislator cronyism and obfuscates the moral hypocrisy of McCain’s Adultery: The Sequel.
Nicely done. No doubt that will be the talking point circulated amongst his GOP supporters.
Hey seroj, why don’t you cry about it some more?
BTW, seroj, you haven’t apparently been keeping up with this fast moving story.
There are now right-ist media outlets (and yes, they DO actually exist) who are also reporting on this.
And the angle most are going after is the corruption, and not whether or not she saw or touched his penaynay. And the facts of his voting record, his attempts to unfairly steer the FCC, and other unseemly actions are there in black and white.
And remember, McCain hasn’t been able to claim perfectly clean hands since the Keating Five thing.
I think J.V. said it well; “I’m glad McCain is being skewered in the press. How do you like a taste of your own medicine, assholes?”
I don’t know if it will last (in part because I don’t know if the Rethug hierarchy is taking ‘08 seriously or just bidding time until they launch an all out assault on ‘12, with Jeb - maybe - leading the charge). But in the mean time, it’s nice to see that the pies being thrown are not just going in one direction…
the issue really isn’t whether he was fucking this woman, it’s whether she traded sexual favors for legislative favors.
I personally don’t care who he has sex with (ugh) but I do care whether his legislative influence and favor is for sale.
As for your being glad that McCain is being “skewered,” whether he actually had the affair or not, that’s just priceless. Thanks for being so honest.
Regardless of who was skewering whom, and irrespective of McCain’s history of bimbo eruptions, there are serious ethics problems that have nothing to do with sexual favors, adultery, etc. that are the crux of this problem.
Seroj is simply trying to reduce it all to adultery rather than substantive ethics allegations. Typical.
I’ve always been puzzled by the “bimbo eruptions” tag. A man cheats on his wife, but it’s the other woman who is the bimbo? Nice to see Ms. Kate continuing the stereotype.
Maybe, but certainly you have to have sex before you can trade sex for legislative favors.
I care who he has sex with. The Modern GOP has made sex outside of marriage into an impeachable offense — that means it’s entirely appropriate to discuss McCain’s past history of having sex outside of marriage.
It’s also entirely appropriate to discuss the obvious corruption angle. McCain has a long record of corruption, including this latest incident and the Keating Five. Is he likely to sell out America for money, or is sex enough for him?
And judging by how completely he’s been on Bush’s dick, I think it’s also appropriate to ask whether that famous photo of McCain blissfully hugging Bush is a result of simple political pandering or an expression of his approval of teh gheymarriage…
seroj,
The NYT is the home of ultra-conservative blowhards like Bill Kristol, Thomas Friedman, and the slightly limper David Brooks. Its “liberal” wing contains the likes of back-to-the-kitchen activist Maureen Dowd, though thankfully they’ve got Krugman.
Sure, it ain’t the Dallas Morning News, but it’s hardly The Nation.
Wait! You can have a substantive ethics allegation that doesn’t involve sex? I though ethics was like morality - the only thing that counts is sex.
I mean, financial deals, torture, pork spending, campaign lies, misrepresentation of science and fact, and all those other things aren’t ethics, any more than taking care of poor, hungry, or sick people involves morality. Unless they are having sex.
Kate, how can you participate in a meaningful discussion if you don’t even know what the words mean. Ask any Republican. They’ll clear things up for you.
Damn, I almost got through it with a straight face. Of course he’s trying to shift it to sex. Then he has a straw man to shoot down.
certainly you have to have sex before you can trade sex for legislative favors.
No. The mere possibility of sex will cause guys to do a lot of things they wouldn’t ordinarily do. And the reality of sexual favors is often not as motivating as the imagined prospect of sexual favors.
And remember, McCain hasn’t been able to claim perfectly clean hands since the Keating Five thing.
Forget Keating - McCain is violating campaign finance laws right now.
I’m still waiting for the evidence that McCain didn’t do it. What–no dress , no sex? The post has a conservative complaining about the sex angle so it’s really not the meanie liberals. And the WaPo article names names–people in the McCain campaign who separately confirmed the story. But, yes, videos from random sketchy guys on YouTube are MUCH more compelling.
The much more serious issue is possible influence peddling. McCain has even admitted that the letter he sent on behalf of her employer stretched the boundaries of ethical behavior. So there’s clear evidence that whether or not he was getting laid, the American people have been getting screwed.
I don’t see this attack as having come from the left. You know Hillary does not want to bring up anyone’s sex scandal, and we also know it does not seem to be Obama’s MO. This crap came straight from the Rethugs themselves. The question is, what is the larger plan? Open up the possibility to change horses at the convention if McCain is forced to drop out? There is an agenda here and the Democrats are NOT in this drivers’ seat.
“There is an agenda here and the Democrats are NOT in this drivers’ seat.”
Let’s be honest. The Democrats haven’t even seen the driver’s seat for so long it’s not clear they would even recognize it…
“Open up the possibility to change horses at the convention if McCain is forced to drop out?”
I’ve been wondering about this for a while. That’s also part of the question I asked above: Do the Rethugs still go all out for ‘08, or do they keep their powder dry for a massive ‘12 effort to seize the presidency?…
I read that non-denial denial, and it said: I learned something from Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial, and it wasn’t to keep my hands off the women half my age who throw themselves at my crotch–it was that I should never deny having discharged DNA after getting caught.
He didn’t say, I didn’t have sex with her. He said, This is beneath me and I won’t address it.
Which translates to, Yeah, but you can’t prove a connection between the political favors (public TV in Pittsburgh???!?!!) and the blowjob(s).
I love this one. 173 year old US Senator thinks perky blonde lobbyist bearing an uncanny resemblance to each of this wives (at the time he married them) wanted to have dinner to hear him talk about Middle East policy. He’s not an adulterer, he’s a chump.
I’ve always been puzzled by the “bimbo eruptions” tag. A man cheats on his wife, but it’s the other woman who is the bimbo? Nice to see Ms. Kate continuing the stereotype.
Don’t ya just love collective Rethug amnesia? That and dodging even a mere comment on the ethics issues raised here.
“Don’t ya just love collective Rethug amnesia?”
Amnesia?
You. Just. Used. The. Term.
You all are shame proof.
MikeEss,
Agreed, I wish the Democrats as a party were even capable of driving. Obama’s people are getting around that handicap, and for that I applaud them.
I can’t imagine the GOP would sacrifice an election year, particularly after 8 years of executive hegemony. They’ll be in it to win it, but there are likely a whole lot of Republicans who will suspect at heart that McCain’s the new Dole, and they’re probably toast.
That is, unless Hil gets the nom. [ducks, prepares for flames…]
seroj, you questioned above my ability to recognize irony.
“You all are shame proof.”
Now THAT is irony…
You all are shame proof.
Seroj - you’re getting hung up on the sex. Real questions have been raised about McCain’s influence peddling. Even the head of the FCC is confirming that McCain tried to interfere with the process on behalf of the people this woman was affiliated with.
Can you address those charges, or not? The fact that a serial adulterer was spending so much time with an attractive young lobbyist that his own staff had to take measures is salacious, and shameful if true, but the influence peddling that’s known to have occurred doesn’t seem to merit your attention.
Why is that? Where’s your shame, exactly?
“I can’t imagine the GOP would sacrifice an election year, particularly after 8 years of executive hegemony. They’ll be in it to win it, but there are likely a whole lot of Republicans who will suspect at heart that McCain’s the new Dole, and they’re probably toast.”
I figure a couple of things:
The nation is in a horrible state in general, and on top of that, we’re headed into what may be the worst recession since the ’30s. So if a Democrat gets in office, they will have one hell of a mess to clean up. And all the while the Rethugs in congress will be doing everything possible to make that job worse.
And unless they can pull a new Rethug out of a hat - who has all of the self-contradictory Reichwing talking points down, is personable, a good speaker, and has some kind of charisma - McCain is not a sure thing by any means.
And it’s also clear that Jeb will marketed as a “new kind of Bush” or some such rot, at least for ‘12 if not sooner.
And it’s also clear that none of the current Rethugs who ran this year will look any better with 4 more years of aging.
I guess we’ll see how it plays out…
And the angle most are going after is the corruption, and not whether or not she saw or touched his penaynay. And the facts of his voting record, his attempts to unfairly steer the FCC, and other unseemly actions are there in black and white.
Which is why seroj is doing everything in his power to concentrate on the sex angle. If he can just prove that McCain didn’t have sex with her, all of the favors he did for her and accepted from her in exchange for his vote are perfectly innocent — you know, just like Duke Cunningham’s boat.
As far as seroj is concerned, if was no sex, there’s no scandal, even if “Mr. Straight Talk” McCain sold his vote for free rides on corporate jets. Mere monetary corruption is no big deal if there’s no sex involved.
Right, seroj?
And for truly stoopid and irresponsible statements, none beats:
“Bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran!”
THIS is the guy we want in the Oval office?
(cough cough! *Duke LaCross! Monica Lewinsky the Human Humidor! And all other old Repug chestnuts!*)
Another gem. Now I need to prove that McCain didn’t have an affair. Apparently, he’s presumed guilty and must be Proven Innocent.
Pandagon actually garnered a few pages in this book, discussing the guilty until proven innocent philosophy described so eloquently above.
Any ideas on who will be riding across the desert on a fine Arab charger to rescue the GOP? I’m assuming that moment has also been scripted.
“Can you address those charges, or not?”
I have the same reply. McCain has denied he did anything illegal or unethical.
Again, republican politicians are innocent until proven guilty, just like the rest of us. I don’t know why this is such a hard concept around these parts.
“Again, republican politicians are innocent until proven guilty, just like the rest of us. I don’t know why this is such a hard concept around these parts.”
…and so, for example, you absolutely believe O.J. Simpson is an innocent man - because he was not convicted in his criminal trial…
Or does this only work people who are on your side?…
The affair is not the point, and you’re using it as a smokescreen. The point is that McCain has been documented as accepting favors from lobbyists and then voting in favor of their companies.
You’re desperate to prove there was no affair, because you think that if you can prove that, it somehow proves that the other allegations of trading his vote for favors from corporations are wrong, too.
Keep pointing at the affair, seroj. That’s the least important part of this story.
You mean the book about which Publishers Weekly said:
Yeah, that sounds like a real winner. Let me guess, next you’re going to recommend I read Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism because, I’m, like, totally oppressing you by pointing out that John McCain’s been known to be a dirty politician since the savings and loan scandal.
“…and so, for example, you absolutely believe O.J. Simpson is an innocent man - because he was not convicted in his criminal trial…”
The gloves didn’t fit, so they had to acquit.
seroj, must as I dislike engaging a hypocritical apologist such as yourself it does boil down to this:
— absent compelling public interest, sex does not belong in the public sphere;
— the GOP and the corporate media that takes dictation from them have made sex a huge issue on which careers should be shattered, even in the absence of proof or relevance, even using witchhunts if necessary;
— the GOP is being hoist on its own petard;
— asswipes like you crawl out from under the rocks to insist that the gutter flow that the GOP started and exploited the weapons of government to maintain should not be applied to the GOP no matter how much it applied to Clinton and the Democrats. (Oddly enough, in saying that people shouldn’t examine allegations like this GOP hacks such as yourself always reference Clinton, thus highlighting your double standard.)
Really, seroj, all of your posts — and by god, they are a legendary mix of tedious and annoying — can be summarized thus: “We can do this the Democrats, but nobody should do this to us!”
By the by, to call the NYT a liberal paper is ludicrous; amongst other things they have suppressed vital information to help the GOP win elections and were in the front of baying for Clinton’s blood. The fact that one of your most reliable corporate mainstream media whores occasionally fucks somebody that you don’t approve of does not make them one of us, fool, it merely makes them occasionally disobedient to their pimps.
McCain has denied he did anything illegal or unethical.
And his denial supercedes the evidence, in your view? How do you respond to the FCC’s flat-out rebuttal of McCain’s comments?
Again, republican politicians are innocent until proven guilty, just like the rest of us.
With even the FCC agreeing that McCain tried to interfere with the approval process, the FEC flat-out confirming that McCain’s loan shenanigans are contrary to federal law, and the public records to show donations from Paxson, aren’t we well past the point of the presumption of innocence, here? Isn’t it time for McCain and his supporters to address the damning evidence against him with something besides fraudulent denials?
I’m simply curious, Seroj, why you feel absolutely free to take McCain at his word. Is it just that you’re completely ignorant of the entire issue?
“The gloves didn’t fit, so they had to acquit.
…and you believed in his innocence from the very beginning, and now that he’s an “innocent” man, if he moved in next to you and started dating your daughter, you’d be cool with it, right?…
And the same is true for you regarding Bill Clinton - you were absolutely convinced of his innocence regarding any of the Rethug-driven scandals he was accused of, and, since he was never found guilty in an actual court of law, you believe in his innocence to this very day, right?…
*yawn* I’m really really bored
“I’m really really bored”
Operation Disengage Troll beginning…
Now!…
Actually, given the amount of starry-eyed knob-polishing of McCain that goes on in the CMSM I am amazed that this story saw the light of day. I’m not holding my breath that such newfound backbone will extend to him generally, but I will concede my surprise.
McCain and the lobbyist: the final straw for the GOP Base?
Oh, “final straw” my ass. Republicans in this country are going to line up and vote against the n****r or the b***h even if their candidate gets caught on hi-res video engaging in necrophilia and cannibalism. Even if he gets caught twice.
Says prayer to Thistle, great bunbun of troll supression.
Speaking of bunnies, where is General Woundwort lately? Or Hyzenthlay? Or for that matter, Dandelion? Love the Watership Down inspired names…
Back on (sort of) topic…
What are the odds that the Rethugs will have a brokered convention, dealing McCain the final death blow to his political aspirations?
Or, if McCain runs and loses, will he become the ultimate Rethug Judas Goat, taking all the party’s sins on himself and leaving the door wide open for Jeb! bush in ‘12? (de-emphasizing the Bush part…)
Or is there some other Rethug knight in shining armor waiting in the wings?…
Or will the whole party collapse and be a non-issue for the next two generations?…
MikeEss,
Quit giving me nightmares. I can’t imagine the country standing for another Bush, but then, I said that in 2000…
MikeEss: Bloomberg.
Possible, seeker. He did switch over to (Ind) a few weeks ago, though…
And MikeEss, rather than Jeb in ‘12, I see the Bush dynasty following the theoretical British example of skipping over Charles and grooming William:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_P._Bush
Of course, his political future would have BETTER ensured if his uncle hadn’t tried to single-handedly destroy the last century’s worth of civilization… pesky little detail.
If they’re gonna canonize George P., they’ll have to scrub this pesky police report. Lucky for him his ex-girlfriend didn’t press charges after he broke into her house.
louise, pretending to be independent but really being GOP is an already-established route: the Liebermove.
Right or wrong, at least Clinton really did play Groucho Marx with his Intern’s vagina.
Quite apart from the FCC and FEC allegations, I’d love it if Seroj could explain this statement in detail.
Hmmm… all these years I’ve been playing Harpo. Maybe that’s why I’m still single.
She obviously thinks her man Mitt would have walked away with the nomination had this story dropped back before Florida.
You know, we could very well wind up soon in a situation where half the Right is denouncing the NYT for having the audacity to report this story, and the other half is denouncing them for not reporting it sooner. That’ll be interesting.
Something fascinating to me is that apparently like half the journalism community has known about this since December, but no one was willing to spill the beans to the public– the Washington Post was working on versions of the story, the Drudge Report had the story before it ran, the New Republic has been writing a story about the NYT’s failure to run the story, and I bet Fox News has had the denunciation they ran of the NYT’s “gutter politics” typed since December.
And the angle most are going after is the corruption, and not whether or not she saw or touched his penaynay.
Indeed. I wish the NYT had taken this tack more explicitly as well, as it’s the more relevant and important angle for the story.
“louise, pretending to be independent but really being GOP is an already-established route: the Liebermove.”
Mentioning that man’s name, even without him being involved himself, makes me ill.
Regarding Bloomberg, don’t you think he damaged himself, at least somewhat, with his weird exploration of a “middle way” candidacy?
Or do you think he can pull a Schwarzenegger and get away with it?…
Err, the red text in that last post was intended to be a link to here.
I read that too, Mnemosyne; they’ll just say it was “youthful exuberance” and dig up something to discredit any opponents. When in doubt, sling enough mud until the other side is buried! That’s the thing about having really deep familial/political pockets- you can screw up and have someone else in your employ work feverishly to get rid of the problem.
I was wrong, seeker; Bloomberg changed affiliate back last year. There was SOMETHING more recent than he filed in NY, but damned if I can get it to come out of the cobwebs. The Lieberman maneuver is so disingenuous and fools no one, so I was surprised when he did it. Maybe he really is utterly disgusted with the GOP party as a whole; certainly there are many lifelong Republicans who are.
No, I think the GOP is kinda stuck here with what they’ve got and to paraphrase what MikeEss brought up, will suck it up for this election, knowing they have nothing better on the bench, and come out hard in ‘12. With WHO is so up in the air…
If corporate America decides on a candidate then they could nominate a smirking, fratboy draft dodger and get away with it. (It’s not as if they haven’t done it before.) A billionaire executive (in a country where the press practically jacks offs to Forbes in the bathroom) would be a piece of cake.
He;s damned lucky that he didn’t live in jurisdiction where the domestic violence laws mandate a charge in such circumstances.Oh PLEASE let them take the Illinois Republican route and run Alan Keyes against Barack Obama. Even the most hardened Republican would flinch from that.
Seeker, don’t forget that Schwarzenegger was the corporate candidate in California. He was brought in specifically to kill the lawsuit that Grey Davis had brought against Enron for gaming the electricity market here.
That he hung around for a second term has more to do with the ultra-suckitude of our California Democrats than people liking Schwarzenegger. Why they didn’t run Kathleen Brown again, I don’t know, because she probably could have beaten him.
The same the “leading liberal newspaper”, The New York Times, that endorsed McCain for the Republican nomination on Jan. 25?
Yea, verily!
teac, that was all part of NYT’s convoluted evil master plan of “bait and switch”!
Bwahahahahahaha!!!
And unlike South Park’s gnomes, you don’t need underpants for profits- you just sell more papers. (ya know, I’m surprised a Repug hasn’t suggested this as a motive)
I just remembered who Paxson was. He put together a string of stations with a vaguely Christian theme. The most controversial show on Pax was Diagnosis Murder. I don’t have the sense that McCain helped facilitate evil, unless you’re really opposed to Dick Van Dyke — the white haired years.
Mnemo: The ousted Gray Davis’s replacement by the moderate Republican Schwarzenegger was poetic justice. Gray had spent $7 million dollars on the Republican gubernatorial primary, convincing Republicans that former LA Mayor Riordan was too liberal, and they should vote for the conservative daddy’s boy nonentity Bill Simon. Davis spent only $3 million to secure his renomination, but it was money well spent because moderate Republicans are Kryptonite for Democratic gubernatorial candidates in California.
Hector wrote:
So, even if he did not have sex with that woman, he’s still guilty?
“So, even if he did not have sex with that woman, he’s still guilty?”
Dana, the question is about corruption, not penaynays and vajayjays.
So whether they had sex or not, whether it involved a cigar or not, whether she snapped her thong at him or not, whether there’s a dress with a stain on it or not - completely immaterial…
So, even if he did not have sex with that woman, he’s still guilty?
Only if you think the problem is sex and not political corruption. If he accepted favors from companies and/or lobbyists in exchange for favorable votes on their legislation, the sex is just a distraction. Without the sex, you’ve still got corruption.
Thing is, Hector wrote his sentence precisely about sexual tittilation, and not any sort of political corruption.
K Kiernanw wrote:
Uhhh, no, not if it’s same-sex necrophilia.
Slightly OT, but could Cindy McCain look any more stereotypically witchy than in this photo? Seriously, all she needs is a broomstick and a pointy hat and she’s all ready to step into the title role in “Wicked.”
Did her stylist say, “I know! Let’s make you look like Kim Novak in ‘Bell, Book & Candle’!”
Thing is, Hector wrote his sentence precisely about sexual tittilation, and not any sort of political corruption.
Again, only if you think it’s perfectly fine for a politician to vote favorably on a lobbyist’s legislation if he hopes to get into her pants by doing it.
That’s the issue here. It’s not the affair, it’s who the affair was allegedly with, and how it affected McCain’s votes in Congress. Getting cozy with lobbyists in a non-sexual way was what got Duke Cunningham a nice stretch in the federal pen.
Mr Ess asked:
Even less than the odds that Al Gore will ride into the Democratic Convention to heal the breach between the partisans of Senators Obama and Clinton by accepting the nomination himself.
Oh, who knows? Mr McCain will either win or lose the election, and if he loses, there’s always recrimination heaped upon the loser; just think how y’all treated His Electableness, John Kerry.
A lot of conservatives — and I wasn’t among them — were hoping that Fred THompson would fill that role; he didn’t. Mr McCain will have won the nomination fair and square, pretty much the way Bill Clinton did after the Gennifer Flowers revelations.
No. The whole party was supposed to collapse following the Barry Goldwater debacle, but came back to win the presidency in 1968. the GOP was consigned to the ash heap of history following Watergate, but by 1980 not only elected a president but won control of the Senate.
And it wasn’t so long ago that we were hearing the talking heads discussing the death knell of the Democratic Party, following the 2002 and 2004 elections; that didn’t work out too well, either.
Tim Noah sums it up well:
New York Times 0, New Republic 0, McCain 1
Regardless of whether he had the affair, McCain wins. If he was Vicki Iseman’s lover, the Times and New Republic have now discredited the story by failing to produce much in the way of evidence. If he wasn’t Vicki Iseman’s lover, then he has shamed the press with his righteous indignation. As a bonus, the scandal story has provoked an apparent rapprochement with McCain-haters Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham, who hate the Times a lot more.
http://www.slate.com/id/2184923/
Thanks for your thoughts Dana.
No really.
I mean that.
But it still doesn’t make me feel any better…
That’s the issue here. It’s not the affair, it’s who the affair was allegedly with, and how it affected McCain’s votes in Congress. Getting cozy with lobbyists in a non-sexual way was what got Duke Cunningham a nice stretch in the federal pen.
You don’t believe the allegations about how they bought the Dukester plenty of perky blonde action?…
Oh wait, that’s not what you meant by ‘non-sexual’, you meant he wasn’t schtupping the lobbyists themselves.
Well, yeah, as far as we know.
This validates the thread-winning comment: Republicans delighted that front-runner’s lobbyist sex scandal is centered on an adult female.
Dana, the main problem with lobbying is that it influences a legislator to vote the way the lobbyist wants, regardless of what the constituents want, or what is best for the country. In the wake of the Abramoff scandal, people want to prohibit lobbyists’ giving Congress gifts and meals. If a Senator can be swayed by a pen and pencil set, or by the prospect of a good meal with some fat sweaty bald lobbyists, he can certainly be swayed by the prospect of getting to know better a hot blonde who thinks he’s fascinating.
I would just like to say one thing:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/4107
This script has made reading this post so much more enjoyable.
This cracked me up.
The GOP appears to have forgotten, at least temporarily, that when you circle the wagons, you’re supposed to shoot out, not in.
Is it wrong that the Bush-fueled implosion of the GOP makes me happy in my tummy?