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Did McCain Lean on FCC Commissioner on Iseman's Behalf?
Remember that New York Times story from February that didn't quite deliver the goods about John McCain's entanglement with the lobbyist Vicki Iseman? Well, there was one strand to the Times' reporting that was lost amid the unproven allegations of a sexual relationship. But the Times' own earlier reporting from 2000, as well as what TPMmuckraker has learned, suggests it deserves some attention.
Towards the end of the February story, the Times wrote about McCain's assistance to Iseman's client, Lowell Paxson, who ran the media company Paxson Communications:
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.
But it turns out that the Times had covered this before. Back in January 2000, Stephen Labaton, one of the four Times scribes on the Iseman story from this February, had reported on McCain's help for Paxson. Paxson, Labaton wrote, had lent McCain his corporate jet four times in the last year, and had scheduled a Florida fundraiser for McCain (which was subsequently cancelled); and McCain had received more than $20,000 in contributions from Paxson Communications executives.
And Labaton added something even more interesting:
The commissioners who approved the transfer were two Republicans and a Democrat, Susan Ness, who was been known for some time as the swing vote and whose nomination for a second term is now before the Senate Commerce Committee.
Ms. Ness said in an interview today that the rules prohibited her from talking about her deliberations in the Pittsburgh case and that as a matter of policy, she has declined to discuss her pending confirmation."I always vote in my decisions based on the law and the facts before us and anyone who knows my record knows that," she said.
According to a former F.C.C. staffer, Ness rarely broke with her Democratic colleagues, as she did on this vote. The former staffer added that being appointed to a second term as an F.C.C. commissioner was unusual at the time -- most commissioners served only one term -- and that Ness was actively campaigning for her re-appointment. The Atlantic's Joshua Green, who wrote about this in March, judged that "Ness's vote is widely thought to have been a bid to win her reappointment to the FCC."
So, did the Times miss the real story in their recent reporting on Iseman: McCain leveraging his position as committee* chair to help convince Ness to vote in favor of Iseman's client's TV deal? Could be...
*Corrected from an earlier version.
McCain is the favored candidate of the American aritocracy. And it's the New York Times we're talking about. Did they miss the story... or sit on it?
August 26, 2008 6:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hi everyone
My name is Cindy McCain. I am the wife of a POW.
I am here at the convention to introduce my husband,
the next Pow .. I mean president of the United states.
I met John not long after he was a POW, he was cheating on his wife at the time
because he had been a POW, and I just could not be prouder that he picked me.
It was a difficult time in the POW's ... I mean Johns life. You see he had to go home
to a wife who'd been badly injured in a car accident, now he had seen enough of these injuries when
he was a POW and felt it was his moral duty to divorce her. Oh sure he tried to work it out by having
sex with other women to save the marriage - but in the end it did not work because he was a POW.
I'd like to talk a little about myself and my accomplishments ....
I married a man who was a POW.
I was raised in a family with two sisters and I am an only child.
My father - who like John - the POW - cheated on and divorced his first wife,
he left me only one hundred million dollars when he died. Subsequently we have only been able to buy twelve houses,
Sadly it is not enough to keep John from feeling cooped up like a POW.
I lobby against mothers against drunk driving because I own a beer distributorship - those mothers should not threaten the
livelihood of a POW. Now you don't want to get John mad or he might call you a cunt - which he called me once in public.
Sadly it is because he was a POW, that may have been the low point of my life. But I bounced back and told people that
mother Teresa told me to adopt a child even though I just made that part up because John was a POW.
I could go on and on and on and on,
but just let me leave off tonight by saying thank you all, and thank God, that John was a POW.
August 26, 2008 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have a strong feeling that by the time "POW McCain" is through beating this dead horse that much of America will be more than ready to send him back to Hanoi. Until that time comes, however, I think it could make a splendid drinking game.
"He said 'POW' again. Drink!!"
August 26, 2008 9:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Someone should tell James Carville that he has the right on the first night of the Republican convention to make improper jokes about McCain repeatedly cheating on his wife with blonde bimbos after Mrs. McCain does her speech.
After all, it's Carville. He's supposed to be an equal-opportunity bastard, right?!
August 27, 2008 2:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Poor Cindy, because of her husband- who was a POW by the way, he just doesn't like to talk about it- she has been driven to steal drugs from her charity and get addicted.
So what if her husband is screwing Viki Iseman!!!
He has family values and still loves her.
He just showed he how much he loves her by encouraging her to strip before a couple hundred bikers in Sturgis. What a good man, what a good republican.
Who knows next week he may be comforting Larry Craig.
August 26, 2008 8:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Zach - Good piece. I think in the last paragraph you mean "committee" not "commission."
August 26, 2008 8:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
WTF!?!?!?! McInsane lending his voice/support for someone who might have made political contribution to his campaigns or even was just plain friendly to him! I can not belief that . . . It is not as if he were one of the Keating Five . . . Oops. Oh. I hope the Ethics Committee takes a look at McInsane.
August 26, 2008 8:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have heard that McCain is a former POW, so I can't criticize him for having sex with as many attractive women as he can seduce. After all after being a POW for however many years it was, he had to be starved for sex, as most POWs were. As a POW he is above any criticism by any of us, because POWs are all national heroes, and they all deserve a fully intact sex goddess as a wife. Thank God, this one POW was able to marry Cindy, who has lots of money, enabling at least this one POW to enjoy his remaining years as a non POW.
August 26, 2008 9:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
And of course, it's understandable that he repeatedly cheated on her wife, who was crippled after a serious car accident, and finally left her and his three kids for a rich debutante that he met at a ritzy cocktail party.
Obviously, every P.O.W. deserves to be a rich elitist, even if they graduated at the bottom of their class, repeatedly crashed their plane, and probably only got to fly in the first place because of their daddy the admiral.
August 27, 2008 1:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe the CIA could abduct him to one of their (non-existent) Black Sites. At least then he'd have something more recent to use as an excuse for his every fuck-up.
August 26, 2008 9:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Attributing evil motives to all actions of one's despised opponent is an interesting parlor game but doesn't constitute evidence of bad behaviour.
It is entirely possible that Susan Ness looking for an unprecedented second term and knowing the Bush Administration would have voted the same way if Iseman had never existed.
August 26, 2008 11:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
“My marriage ended because John McCain didn’t want to be 40, he wanted to be 25."
- Carol McCain, his first wife, who he repeatedly cheated on while she was disabled from a serious car accident, and then finally left for a rich debutante, abandoning her and estranging his three kids.
"McCain is the classic opportunist. He’s always reaching for attention and glory."
- H. Ross Perot, who personally paid for Carol McCain's medical expenses when McCain was a P.O.W., and who once viewed John McCain as a hero... rather than an unscrupulous opportunist.
August 27, 2008 1:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
For all the sympathy and fortune McCain has generated for being a POW if he hadn't been captured and forced into the position...he would have volunteered for it. He's realized it's the best thing that ever happened to him.
Plus got to work of a little Karma for being responsible for the deaths of 137 fellow crewmen on the USS Forrestal for showing off(against warnings) with a "wet start" which killed the pilot in the plane behind him and started that tragic fire which got him air lifted from the ship immediately (to prevent retalliation...he was the only one taken off ship immediately after the fires broke out) Except he really didn't think about it all that much. In fact graduating 894th out of 899 men at his Annapolis class, he really didn't think about anything all that much, except booze and women. Now he's a family values phony pandering to anyone for their vote...An irresponsible ignorant deceitful hothead does not make a good president.
August 27, 2008 2:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Come on!
Forget his ties to lobbyists -- that's too nuanced to appeal to the gerbil-like attention spans of Joe American.
Obama: Work the sexual indiscretion angle. Talk about Johnnycakes getting married to Stepford Wife before his other marriage was finalized. Affair, affair, affair.
Keep repeating the meme and even wedge-issue idiot will start to feel funny.
August 27, 2008 7:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Btent Wilkes had a secretary by the name of Ness!!!
August 27, 2008 9:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
As much as Mccain sucks, Just have to say it wasnt a hot (wet) start that cause the fire and deaths on the USS Forrestal but a rocket that went off at the other end of the ship that hit the sky rader that Mccain was in. Which in turn started the fire.
August 27, 2008 9:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
I hate to rain on the parade, but it seems to me that Republicans would be MORE likely to vote for someone who behaves in this way toward any regulatory agency. They WANT someone who has no regard for the law. So when you emphasize a candidate's dishonesty, his rating with them probably go up.
August 27, 2008 10:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Uh, make that "goes up."
August 27, 2008 10:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
not only did he cheat on his wife, he really messed up our veterans health care benefits also,
here is a story I found, is very important, to our military, regarding this very issue:
McCain & Veterans' Health Care
McCain Has Repeatedly Voted Against Increasing Funding for Veterans Healthcare to Keep Tax Cuts for the Rich.
John McCain has repeatedly voted to keep intact tax cuts for the rich, rather than provide American veterans with adequate healthcare funding. McCain has repeatedly voted against amendments in the Senate that would have added funding for healthcare services, but eliminated tax cuts for the wealthy. Funding would have covered such important services as improving care at veterans' hospitals, providing mental health services to soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse problems. [2006 Senate Vote #7, 2/2/06; 2005 Senate Vote #343, 11/17/05; 2003 Senate Vote #74, 3/21/03]
2006: McCain Voted Against Eliminating Increased Fees And
Co-Payments For Veterans Health Care Program By Closing Corporate Tax Loopholes.
In 2006, McCain voted against the Kerry amendment that would eliminate increased fees and co-payments for veterans in the TRICARE health care program by raising the discretionary spending limit by approximately $10 billion. The provisions would have been fully offset by eliminating creating corporate tax breaks. [2006 Senate Vote #67, 3/16/2006]
McCain Stood Out in Opposing Veterans' Healthcare Funding.
McCain was one of only 13 Republicans to vote against an amendment that added over $400 million for inpatient and outpatient care for veterans. [2006 Senate Vote #98, 4/26/06]
McCain Puts Politics Over Vets; Would Rather Be Out Campaigning Than Supporting Our Troops.
McCain missed an important vote this year that supported the funding of the troops in Iraq and guaranteed them adequate medical care upon returning home. [2007 Senate Vote #76, 3/15/07]
McCain Blamed Scandal on Rumsfeld's Management of War.
Days after the story broke, McCain told a group of Georgia legislators that "the fruits of Rumsfeld's policy were on display at Walter Reed military hospital in Washington... It's well chronicled that the war was mismanaged." [Atlanta Journal Constitution, 2/22/2007]
FLASHBACK 2004: McCain Refused To Call For Secretary Rumsfeld's Resignation.
McCain would not call for Donald Rumsfeld's resignation, saying that the President "can have the team that he wants around him." McCain said that he respected Bush's decision to keep Rumsfeld around. McCain said, "I respect the president. The president of the United States was re-elected by a majority of the American people, and I respect his right. And I will work with the president obviously and with the secretary of defense." [MSNBC.com, 12/15/04; CNN.com, 12/5/04]
FLASHBACK 2006: McCain Refused to Join Calls For Rumsfeld's Resignation, Said He Would Work With Rumsfeld.
"But the president has the right and earned the right as the president of the United States to appoint his team," and he has confidence in Secretary Rumsfeld. "I will continue to work with Secretary Rumsfeld as much as I can as long as he is secretary of Defense. We have to, because we need to win this war." [East Valley Tribune, 415/2006; http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/63311 ]April 15, 2006 - 6:13AM
Busy McCain expresses views on Rumsfeld, immigration, Iraq war
Paul Giblin, Tribune
Sen. John McCain joined the ranks of retired generals who have said they have no confidence in Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
September 7, 2008 3:17 PM | Reply | Permalink