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An Artful Dodge
TPMm Reader AC writes in with a little more context to McCain's December, 1999 letter to the FCC.
As I mentioned in my post, the McCain campaign has responded at length to the New York Times story, and the statement strives to beat back any impression that McCain had given any undue consideration to clients from Vicki Iseman's firm, Alcalde and Fay -- in this case, Paxson Communications, which was seeking the FCC's approval of a deal.
The statement goes out of its way to claim that no one from Alcalde and Fay had ever "personally asked" McCain to send the letter. The statement also says that while McCain's staff had met with "representatives" from that firm, the staff had also met with activists who opposed the deal. Both camps wanted the issue resolved, and "both parties asked the staff to contact the FCC regarding the proceeding," according to the statement.
There are a couple things wrong with that. For one, the lawyer who represented opponents of the deal told The Boston Globe back in 2000 that McCain's letter was " improper, unethical, violated FCC rules barring such contacts on pending FCC matters, and appeared designed to assist a major contributor." It certainly doesn't sound like she or her clients were consulted.
And when The Washington Post posted a story the next day, the paper had a clear take as to who had wanted the letter sent:
As for the Paxson letter, McCain's aides confirmed that he had written the missive at the request of Alcalde & Fay, the Washington lobbying firm retained by Paxson.
Josh
Zachary
Is this tpm's finest hour or what????
You guys are not letting go of this. I just know it!
The story of the day. The week? The month? The story that changed an election?
Updates on the hour and half-hour. What's next?
February 21, 2008 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did anyone read the piece on Huffpo's website by Lanny Davis? (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lanny-davis/my-role-in-the-mccain-sto_b_87788.html)
(sorry I am unsure how to make the pasted link active!)
In it he says that he asked MR McCain to write the letter to the FCC but that he was told that writing a letter by Mr McCain would be a violation. Davis goes on to say that McCain did not write the letter he intended him to write but instead asked that the FCC rule on the case in a speedy manner.
February 21, 2008 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
JoshQ,
Here's how I make links
I write and I end with whatever I want to show, for example WHATEVER and close with
So it looks like this
href="http://www.whatever.net">WHATEVER
only I start with "" (no quotation marks for the stuff on this line, you need them around the url though.
I hope this is clear. I didn't want to actually cause a link to appear. Sorry, I don't really know the way to write it so you can see it but so that it doesn't really work.
Cheers.
February 21, 2008 5:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Get the rakes!!! Looks like there's plenty o' muck here... keep it up.
February 21, 2008 3:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have a guess that McCain's statement hinges on "personally" in "personally asked" -- as in, if it was asked by anyone from A&F as a personal favor, as opposed to "professionally asked."
February 21, 2008 4:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
That is to say, while Iseman (good lord -- I started to inadvertently mistype "Iselin"!) could have made the request as pillow talk to McCain, so long as she was still asking for the favor on behalf of her client, she was "asking professionally" and not "personally."
February 21, 2008 4:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're giving me a headache, dude.
February 21, 2008 4:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
I find myself slightly worried that the NYT's initial focus on the unprovable, hypothetical affair angle to this story is going to ultimately drown out the much more interesting influence peddling angle.
This said, I wonder if McCain's maybe not quite doing the right things to take advantage of that possibility. It makes sense that he'd deny the affair, and use the NYT's insinuations of affair to denounce "gutter politics" or whatever and raise money. But he seems to have gone a few steps too far and denied some things that may well turn out to be empirically verifiable-- that he didn't do the things he did re: this FCC letter, that his staff didn't try to keep him and the lobbyist apart. It seems like this is going to be kept alive at least one news cycle longer than it might have otherwise as people track down references and we see a round of "McCain actually did some of those things he denied" stories.
February 21, 2008 4:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Paul, what was the name of the lawyer who criticized McCain's letter? Has anyone gotten in touch with him for a current comment?
February 22, 2008 11:50 AM | Reply | Permalink