McCain's Bimbo Eruption

While GOP conservatives and John McCain lambast their despised New York Times for their story about McCain's relationship with female telecom lobbyist Vicki Iseman, they should instead be thanking them for burying the story since late December.... before the start of the primary season.

Why did the Times finally publish the story? Speculation is that The New Republic was about to release a story about how the Times was handling the story. This from the Republic yesterday.... "TNR correspondent Gabe Sherman is working on a piece about the Times' foot-dragging on the McCain story, and the back-and-forth within the paper about whether to publish it." And yes, Sherman will release his story sometime today.

While GOP talking heads will focus their ire on the Times, there was this from Drudge on December 20, 2007.... "Just weeks away from a possible surprise victory in the primaries, Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz has been waging a ferocious behind the scenes battle with the New York Times, the Drudge Report has learned, and has hired DC power lawyer Bob Bennett to mount a bold defenses against charges of giving special treatment to a lobbyist!

"McCain has personally pleaded with NY Times editor Bill Keller not to publishs the high-impact report involving key telecom legislation before the Senate Commerce Committee, newsroom insiders tell the Drudge Report.

"The paper's Jim Rutenberg has been leading the investigation and is described as beyond frustrated with McCain's aggressive and angry efforts to stop any and all publications.

"The drama involves a woman lobbyist who may have helped to write key telecom legislation. The woman in question has retained counsel and strongly denies receiving any special treatment from McCain."

So, the story has been out there. But the GOP wouldn't go after Drudge..... the Times is a much juicier and satisfying target. Some say the source was departed McCain campaign Rovian-guru John Weaver. Weaver is central to the story because as the Times and the Washington Post both report, Weaver.... "met with Ms. Iseman at Union station in Washington to ask her to stay away from the senator."

Weaver said that the Times already knew about his meeting with Iseman when its reporters approached him, and that he was not going to lie to the paper.

According to the Times, their initial sources were.... "two former associates said they joined in a series of confrontations with Mr. McCain, warning him that he was risking his campaign and career. Both said Mr. McCain acknowledged behaving inappropriately and pledged to keep his distance from Ms. Iseman..... they spoke independently of each other and provided details that were corroborated by others."

Just what favors might the crusader-against-lobbyist influence McCain be guilty of? For instance.... "In late 1999, Ms. Iseman asked Mr. McCain's staff to send a letter to the commission to help Paxson, now Ion Media Networks, on another matter. Mr. Paxson was impatient for F.C.C. approval of a television deal, and Ms. Iseman acknowledged in an e-mail message to The Times that she had sent to Mr. McCain's staff information for drafting a letter urging a swift decision.

"Mr. McCain complied. He sent two letters to the commission, drawing a rare rebuke for interference from its chairman."

McCain had a news conference this morning basically denying everything.... that he had a romantic relationship with Iseman, that he acted inappropriately in his position as chairman of the Senate Commerce committee.... even denying ever talking to the Times until he was called on it by a reporter as conflicting with other reports, so McCain backed up and admitted having one brief nothing phone conversation with Keller at the Times.... not an angry or confrontation one.

Cindy McCain was at the press conference, standing by her man..... and that, as we learned from the Bill Clinton bimbo eruptions, is a powerful motivation to deny, deny, deny.

Newspapers gleefully joined in the GOP conservative witch-hunt over Clinton's personal life.... and now those same conservatives are crying foul.

Why did the Times bury this story? They say that the story wasn't ready until now. But, there can be no denying that releasing it before the primary season might have directly affected the outcome..... McCain as the almost certain Republican nominee.

We look forward to reading what Sherman at the Republic has to say later today.