Bennett Slams NY Times Hit Job on McCain

[Wabash]

Wednesday, February 20, 2008 9:34 PM

Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., speaks at a news conference, Wed., in Columbus, Ohio. The Times said that McCain and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, denied the Times innuendo that they had engaged in a romantic relationship.

The liberal New York Times is wasting no time in smearing John McCain, the Republican Party nominee for President.

Late Wednesday, the Times published to its website a story set to hit print editions Thursday, linking McCain to a female lobbyist. The paper suggested the Arizona Senator has been engaged in an illicit relationship.

"A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet," the Times reported. "Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity."

Noted Democratic attorney Robert Bennett appeared on Fox News Wednesday night and called the Times report nothing more than a "real hit job."

Bennett, brother of conservative pundit Bill Bennett, had served as private counsel to President Bill Clinton in the 1990s during the Paula Jones scandal.

The Times said that McCain, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, denied the Times innuendo that they had engaged in a romantic relationship or that McCain had done favors for Iseman. The Times alleged that McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of Iseman.

Though McCain has had a reputation as an independent and maverick U.S. Senator who has championed ethic and campaign finance reform, the Times story painted a different picture.

Though last year McCain had voted to end the practice of lawmakers using private jets paid for by those lobbying Congress, the Times said McCain had used the private planes of billionaires Rupert Murdoch and Michael R. Bloomberg, as well as one of Iseman’s clients.

The paper also dredged up McCain's role in the infamous S&L scandal and his collaboration with banker Charles Keating. McCain was named a member of the so-called "Keating Five."

A Senate Ethic Committee probe found that McCain was only guilty of “poor judgment” in the affair. Bennett noted that he served as the Democratic counsel to the committee investigating the five U.S. Senators. Bennett said he concluded that McCain was an "an honest man."

He added that Times report was "shameless" and slammed the paper for publishing the story, which he described as "entirely unsourced."

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/Bennett_Slams_NY_Times_/2008/02/20/74260.html?s=al&promo_code=45A1-1

[Trueblue]

Wow, Bob Bennett lied.

Mr. McCain’s confidence in his ability to distinguish personal friendships from compromising connections was at the center of questions advisers raised about Ms. Iseman.

The lobbyist, 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.

Mr. Black said Mr. McCain and Ms. Iseman were friends and nothing more. But in 1999 she began showing up so frequently in his offices and at campaign events that staff members took notice. One recalled asking, “Why is she always around?”

That February, 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.

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.

In interviews, the 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. The two associates, who said they had become disillusioned with the senator, spoke independently of each other and provided details that were corroborated by others.

Separately, a top McCain aide met with Ms. Iseman at Union Station in Washington to ask her to stay away from the senator. John Weaver, a former top strategist and now an informal campaign adviser, said in an e-mail message that he arranged the meeting after “a discussion among the campaign leadership” about her.

“Our political messaging during that time period centered around taking on the special interests and placing the nation’s interests before either personal or special interest,” Mr. Weaver continued. “Ms. Iseman’s involvement in the campaign, it was felt by us, could undermine that effort.”

Mr. Weaver added that the brief conversation was only about “her conduct and what she allegedly had told people, which made its way back to us.” He declined to elaborate.

It is not clear what effect the warnings had; the associates said their concerns receded in the heat of the campaign.

Ms. Iseman acknowledged meeting with Mr. Weaver, but disputed his account.

“I never discussed with him alleged things I had ‘told people,’ that had made their way ‘back to’ him,” she wrote in an e-mail message. She said she never received special treatment from Mr. McCain’s office.

Mr. McCain said that the relationship was not romantic and that he never showed favoritism to Ms. Iseman or her clients. “I have never betrayed the public trust by doing anything like that,” he said. He made the statements in a call to Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, to complain about the paper’s inquiries.

The senator declined repeated interview requests, beginning in December. He also would not comment about the assertions that he had been confronted about Ms. Iseman, Mr. Black said Wednesday.

Mr. Davis and Mark Salter, Mr. McCain’s top strategists in both of his presidential campaigns, disputed accounts from the former associates and aides and said they did not discuss Ms. Iseman with the senator or colleagues.

“I never had any good reason to think that the relationship was anything other than professional, a friendly professional relationship,” Mr. Salter said in an interview.

He and Mr. Davis also said Mr. McCain had frequently denied requests from Ms. Iseman and the companies she represented. In 2006, Mr. McCain sought to break up cable subscription packages, which some of her clients opposed. And his proposals for satellite distribution of local television programs fell short of her clients’ hopes.

The McCain aides said the senator sided with Ms. Iseman’s clients only when their positions hewed to his principles.


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/us/politics/21mccain.html?pagewanted=4&_r=1&hp

[Ringo]

Wow, Bob Bennett lied.



http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/us/politics/21mccain.html?pagewanted=4&_r=1&hp

Isn't she a piece of Work Wabby? So damned dumb and naive, when it comes to her beloved Commie Progressives! I was at Newsy's yesterday and I noticed it runs in the Family??:mw:mw:mw

[Trueblue]

Ringo, leave my family out of your insults.

[Saguaro]

Isn't she a piece of Work Wabby? So damned dumb and naive, when it comes to her beloved Commie Progressives! I was at Newsy's yesterday and I noticed it runs in the Family??:mw:mw:mw

Stop the insults Ringo

[toxic]

...
Though last year McCain had voted to end the practice of lawmakers using private jets paid for by those lobbying Congress, the Times said McCain had used the private planes of billionaires Rupert Murdoch and Michael R. Bloomberg, as well as one of Iseman’s clients.

The paper also dredged up McCain's role in the infamous S&L scandal and his collaboration with banker Charles Keating. McCain was named a member of the so-called "Keating Five." ...

Now I do find it extremely interesting that Rupert Murdoch finances both McCain and Hillary ... AND that both of them are in the game at the end.

It reinforces my belief that the game was fixed from the start. Sometimes the result just requires a adjustment of the vote count, other times the US Supreme Court makes the final adjustment. :plot

[Wabash]

Now I do find it extremely interesting that Rupert Murdoch finances both McCain and Hillary ... AND that both of them are in the game at the end.

It reinforces my belief that the game was fixed from the start. Sometimes the result just requires a adjustment of the vote count, other times the US Supreme Court makes the final adjustment. :plot

But then you are a dyed in the wool socialist......anyone who supports obama supports socialism.

[Trueblue]

With your definition of socialism being: anything that is done with tax dollars that doesn't involve war or payoffs to corporate cronies.

[toxic]

But then you are a dyed in the wool socialist......anyone who supports obama supports socialism.

Socialist!!! Hell, Socialists are pussies, I'm a Communist. :rofl