The New York Times v. McCain

The long-awaited New York Times story about John McCain and what the Times calls a "female lobbyist"--wink, wink, nudge, nudge--finally appeared today under a headline called "For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk." The Times story is part of its series on the candidates called "The Long Run." Please.

This is classic journalistic doublespeak. The Times story is about the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 31 years the Senator's junior, and his relationship with her. With the anodyne headline, the Times now has cover to say it was merely examining one aspect of McCain's career in context. But the padding around the Iseman discussion is laughable. The Times brings up the now thoroughly raked-over Keating Five affair and quotes some former editorial page editor from Arizona for comment. Some context.

That said, I can see why the Times went with the story even if they packaged it in an unintentionally hilarious manner. The Gray Lady had sources saying that they were worried about McCain's relationship with Iseman and what it would do to his political career and presidential ambitions. One of them, John Weaver, who was ejected from McCain's inner circle during last year's campaign shakeup/meltdown went on the record. Both McCain and Iseman deny anything improper.

For his part, McCain denied anything inappropriate in the article and at a news conference this morning. With his wife Cindy standing by his side, McCain told reporters in Ohio that he had never "done anything that would betray the public trust or make a decision" that would favor a particular group.

It's a weird piece--strangely unsatisfying and it hardly puts McCain's ethics in much of a context. At bottom, there's no sign that McCain actually did anything for the woman and her clients that he would have done anyway given his positions on a variety of telecom issues. He didn't bend principle for her, so far as I can tell.

Bob Bennett, the Washington attorney, is representing McCain and made the case on the Today show that the Times ignored lots of evidence to the contrary. He said that the Times had been provided with a dozen instances of McCain acting against the interests of Iseman and her clients.

So what's at issue exactly?

According to the Times, Iseman "a partner at the firm Alcalde & Fay, represented telecommunications companies for whom Mr. McCain's commerce committee was pivotal. Her clients contributed tens of thousands of dollars to his campaigns."

The Times goes on to note that in February, 1999, "Mr. McCain and Ms. Iseman attended a small fund-raising dinner with several clients at the Miami-area home of a cruise-line executive and then flew back to Washington along with a campaign aide on the corporate jet of one of her clients, Paxson Communications. By then, according to two former McCain associates, some of the senator's advisers had grown so concerned that the relationship had become romantic that they took steps to intervene."

So what did McCain allegedly do on behalf of Iseman's clients? The Times describes it this way:

"The McCain aides said the senator sided with Ms. Iseman's clients only when their positions hewed to his principles. A champion of deregulation, Mr. McCain wrote letters in 1998 and 1999 to the Federal Communications Commission urging it to uphold marketing agreements allowing a television company to control two stations in the same city, a crucial issue for Glencairn Ltd., one of Ms. Iseman's clients. He introduced a bill to create tax incentives for minority ownership of stations; Ms. Iseman represented several businesses seeking such a program. And he twice tried to advance legislation that would permit a company to control television stations in overlapping markets, an important issue for Paxson. 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."

The Time goes on: "Mr. McCain complied. He sent two letters to the commission, drawing a rare rebuke for interference from its chairman. In an embarrassing turn for the campaign, news reports invoked the Keating scandal, once again raising questions about intervening for a patron. Mr. McCain's aides released all of his letters to the F.C.C. to dispel accusations of favoritism, and aides said the campaign had properly accounted for four trips on the Paxson plane. But the campaign did not report the flight with Ms. Iseman. Mr. McCain's advisers say he was not required to disclose the flight, but ethics lawyers dispute that."

"Recalling the Paxson episode in his memoir, Mr. McCain said he was merely trying to push along a slow-moving bureaucracy, but added that he was not surprised by the criticism given his history."

"Any hint that I might have acted to reward a supporter," he wrote, "would be taken as an egregious act of hypocrisy."

As for the block-and-tackle of McCain aides, the Times adds: "A former campaign adviser described being instructed to keep Ms. Iseman away from the senator at public events, while a Senate aide recalled plans to limit Ms. Iseman's access to his offices."

I think the Times had enough to go on to print something about the aides trying to keep Iseman at bay. Still, my heart goes out to Bob Bennett in all of this. The poor guy had the misfortune of dealing with the Times as Judith Miller's lawyer in the CIA leak case of which I was a part. And dealing with the Times was no pretty thing.

The Times, I've written, treated Miller shabbily and Bennett was in the middle of it when the Times's executive editor, Bill Keller, wrote to the staff that Miller had an inappropriate relationship with Dick Cheney Chief of Staff Scooter Libby. Keller later took back the comment because there was nothing to suggest that Miller's relationship with Libby was anything but professional but the damage was done. (Miller's reporting may have been deeply flawed but that's another matter.)

Now Keller's paper is again implying something torrid. (Keller actually appears in the story and took McCain's denial himself.) This time, at least, he has the concerns of McCain's own staff and the McCain team will have to explain why his own aides have put this out there. I assume their answer will be that Weaver is disgruntled and the other anonymous aides are either peddling in gossip or were fabricated by the Times, the latter of which seems impossible to believe and the former of which might be possible were it not for the on the record quotes of Weaver.

Politically, I don't know where it's going but it certainly gives McCain an in with conservatives to say he's at war with the liberal "New York Times." My own guess is that unless more comes about about Iseman and McCain this will not be enough to slow his march to the nomination.