redblueamerica.com

I've been a newspaper man my entire professional life. I've read The New York Times story about McCain and the pretty blond lobbyist four times, and I'm wracking my brain to come up with an example of a thinner justification to run such a damaging story. No editor I've ever worked for would run it. In fact, I'd be reamed out for wasting the time of the paper, my editors and myself. ...

So, McCain was overly chummy with a female lobbyist nearly a decade ago -- in the view of two unnamed associates who left his circle because they "had become disillusioned with the senator" (no ax to grind there, huh?) As The Campaign Spot notes:

So this is the story? Not that they had an affair, but they hung around each other enough so that people began to talk? I mean, if you're going to make the accusation, then make the accusation.

Heh. Of course, The New York Times can't make the accusation. If they had the goods, they'd show 'em. They obviously don't. But even without the only-hinted "affair" angle, we're supposed to be aghast that Mr. Clean was doing favors for lobbyists. But even that is pretty thin gruel.

The follow-up by The Washington Post says that the woman's firm had issues before the Commerce Committee. Well, yes. Lobbyists who want to influence commerce issues -- otherwise known as the Constitutional guarantee to influence the laws by which you will be governed -- wouldn't be very effective if they were lobbying the Veterans Affairs Committee. But here's the "gotcha":

Iseman clients have given nearly $85,000 to McCain campaigns since 2000, according to records at the Federal Election Commission.

I'll let David Freddosso at The Corner take it from here:

Hang on a second. Eighty-five grand? Over eight years? That's it? [McCain] was the chairman of the committee!

If McCain is an extortionist, he's a pathetic excuse for one. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) shook down the hedge fund industry for ten times that amount in a single month. That's how you take advantage of people under your purview. [bold emphasis mine]

And, it should be noted, that there's no smoking gun of quid pro quo here. No huge piece of legislation. No amendment McCain quietly slipped into a bill to benefit the woman's clients. Writing a couple of notes to federal bureaucrats? Please. That's about as lame as it gets in Washington influence-peddling. Indeed, there is no mention at all of what her clients have to show for the efforts of McCain and his lobbyist friend. Because nothing happened beyond the chairman of the FCC having a snit.

It is also telling that most of the story consists of old-news filler about the Keating Five scandal, which was 20 years ago. Bob Bennett, the Democratic counsel who investigated the matter for the Senate, said on Hannity & Colmes tonight that he recommended that McCain be left out of the mess because he didn't do anything wrong. But the Senate, for the first time Bennett can ever recall, rejected its own counsel's recommendation so it wouldn't look like an entirely Democratic scandal -- score one for "bipartisanship."

And McCain was so tainted that the voters of Arizona punished him by continuing to send him back to the Senate for two decades. I suppose now this hit piece is his ultimate reward.

Shameful, but typical, of the partisan New York Times. John Kerry complains about "Swiftboating." At least the Swiftboat guys presented corroborating evidence people speaking on the record.

If this is all there is, this is simply pathetic.