Thursday, February 21, 2008

Sex, lies, lobbyists and John McCain's B. S. express

I was enjoying a nice piece of Talaipa with my homemade mussel sauce while watching Hardball on MSNBC last night. When Keith (BIGHEAD) Olbermann came on with the "breaking news" of Juan McCain's involvement with a forty year old lobbyist for the telcom industry. While MSNBC played up the sex scandal angle the Washington Post this morning has the more important details. Here are the money quotes:

"In the years that McCain chaired the commerce committee, Iseman lobbied for Lowell W. "Bud" Paxson, the head of what used to be Paxson Communications, now Ion Media Networks, and was involved in a successful lobbying campaign to persuade McCain and other members of Congress to send letters to the Federal Communications Commission on behalf of Paxson. "

In late 1999, McCain wrote two letters to the FCC urging a vote on the sale to Paxson of a Pittsburgh television station.

"At the time he sent the first letter, McCain had flown on Paxson's corporate jet four times to appear at campaign events and had received $20,000 in campaign donations from Paxson and its law firm. The second letter came on Dec. 10, a day after the company's jet ferried him to a Florida fundraiser that was held aboard a yacht in West Palm Beach."

As much as it would delight me to see Juan McCain do a Bill Clinton "I did not have sex with... " moment. The big story is how easily the wheels will come off of McCain's "straight talk express" . And how politicians like McCain think the American people are dumb enough to believe that his getting free rides on the Paxson Corporate jet had nothing to do with his writing letters to the FCC urging votes on an issue involving financial gain to a Paxson. It's clear that despite all the polished image of John McCain as a crusader he is still a creature of Washington and instead of sending him to the Whitehouse he should be sent back to Arizonia ASAP. It remains tho be seen if those Republicans who jumped aboard the McCain bandwagon will continue to ride his B.S. express all the way to defeat.

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