Sure, February was a good month for McCain. He pretty much locked up his party’s nomination, sending Thompson, Giuliani and Romney back into relative obscurity. But February also saw hopefully the first of many stories that are showing the true colors of the man who prides himself on his above the fray, beyond reproach, squeaky clean, reformer image.
Okay, here’s where we’ll start needing the scorecard.
1. The Lobbyist
Two weeks ago, the New York Times “broke” a story describing McCain’s close relationship with lobbyist Vicky Iseman. Much has been written, blogged, screamed, sung, and danced about this story with McCain doing all the denying and his former aids doing all the confirming.
Did this relationship grow to such an intimate level that these aids had to use a hose to separate the two budding lovebirds? This is not the point. What is more important is that, out of “nowhere,” here comes a snapshot of a man who may not be as righteous as he claims to be. (Are we surprised? He did, after all cheat on his first wife, the woman who raised his three children while he was imprisoned in Vietnam.)
2. The Money
The next bit of pesky business for McCain is the FEC complaint that was filed yesterday by the DNC.
Here’s the short of it: Back when McCain’s campaign was tanking and on its last gasps, he elected to sign on for federal matching funds. To obtain a quick influx of cash, McCain used the assurance of these funds as collateral to obtain a bank loan. Now that McCain is the presumptive candidate and money is no longer an issue, he is trying to weasel his way out of the promise he made to use the federal funds.
The issue here is that, if McCain is required to adhere to the strict confines of (here’s the best part) the MCCAIN/FEINGOLD bill, then he will be limited to the amount of money he can spend between now and the GOP convention when he becomes the party nominee. Seeing as how he has already spent about $50 million dollars, McCain has about reached the limits of what he can spend over the next six months.
OUCH. This is huge and if the FEC does not allow McCain to opt out of the federal funds, then he’s going to be stuck in the mud and forced to sit on the sidelines while Obama/Clinton campaign without limits. And if McCain decides to press on and spend away, FEC be damned, then he will be breaking the same federal law he helped write.
3. The Email
As if it couldn’t get worse, the Huffington Post is reporting that McCain withheld an email during the Abramoff investigation that was damaging to one of his cronies. Remember, McCain, the Reformer, the self-described king of routing out waste, evil, corruption and hedonism in the sacred walls of the Senate, sat on the Indian Affairs Committee that investigated the corruption that was part of the Abramoff investigation.
As it turns out, McCain and his staff had an email describing Abramoff’s attempts to assure the election of Alabama Gov. Bob Riley. McCain not only ignored the email, thereby protecting his friend Riley from any unwanted negative attention, but he even refused to make the email public even after his committee report was released. Riley went on to win under dubious circumstances.
As the article states,
McCain's campaign did not return request for comment. For critics, however, the senator's decision not to include the email in his report underscores not only a glaring shortcoming of his investigation, but also a chink in his political veneer. Indeed, they claim, the Arizona Republican often takes overt steps to protect Republican colleagues from his anti-corruption dragnets.
Seriously, folks, it’s not even March and three back to back stories have appeared questioning the “political veneer” of McCain. There’s no question that we are going to need a score card to keep up with all of the other indiscretions that will assuredly start appearing in the press in the coming weeks and months. Is it any wonder that Josh Romney, Mitt's son, is hinting that his dad's campaign suspension may be ending?
1 comment:
Will the media ignore this(of course)? How long does their circle jerk with him go on? And they wonder why more and more people are tuning them out and logging on instead. Straight Talk my butt. My son lies better than McBush!
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