Rollin

Ya know those little kid party favors, the little gizmo with the picture of the lion or the dragon and some bb’s to slip into the holes? That’s politics today … no savvy, truthful media to sort anything out for us, too much truthiness to cloud our sensibilities — and anyone courageous enough to try gets “Rathered.” We have Olbermann, and his ratings at MSNBC continue to soar, but he comes across as having a case of road rage to the moderates and Right.

Thankfully, at any kids party, there’s one smarty-pants grown-up that can grab that little puzzle and swing those bb’s into the dragons mouth and eye and the two in his tail with ease. They know their dots. We need to know ours too.

So today we’ll look at the McCain mini-scandal … what many are calling ‘yellow journalism’ on the part of the New York Times … and what that scandal ACTUALLY tells us. Given this possibility of adultery, the Right has finally circled its wagons around its [almost] anointed — they just needed a “them” to activate their nativist rhetoric and “them” appeared [a Divine Light from Heaven, leading them along] as the “liberal media headed by the New York Times.” [That same liberal media that sat on critical stories about WMD before the war began, and internal scandals before the election was stolen, I might add ... with friends like these, yadda!]

In order to get the bb’s in the dragons eye and mouth, we have to get past the sexual innuendo … as an article below points out, sex sells so we got some serious traction with this little tale. The dots are in plain sight. For those on the Left, the sexual portion is none of our business. This possibility of an affair is clearly more potent to the Right than the Left, as exemplified by Bay Buchanan’s huffed up comments [gives me hissy fits, that one!] on CNN the day of the article — this is not “Republican” behavior, not Conservative principals, the Pubs expect their folk to be uber-honorable to the marriage bed! One young pundit in the group pointed out, with a grin, the problems with young boys in the Congress, and foot tapping in the men’s room, which put Ms. Buchanan into a stutter until she found a rejoinder.

Everybody’s in bed with everybody else in WaDC, literally or figuratively … so while the Dobson’s of the world stroke out and give Huck a larger slice of the prospective pie, defend their ‘uber-honor’ and dream the dreams of hypocrites everywhere, we are not required to be so shaky-fingered as we swing these dots ’til they fall into the appropriate hole. In fact, the Pubs may not even see where they should put those little bb’s — cronyism, lobbying, money-passing is life’s blood to them. Why should that be an issue?

As regards the original piece, the Times journo’s said what they were willing to say but, clearly, not everything they know; the article reads like a teaser … which leaves it to us to follow those dots to the other things they said loud and clear. Follow the lobby, follow the money — easy enough dots to follow, but MSM rarely does. Here are a few articles that point to the actual scandal here, which is Mac’s happy cohabiting with lobbyists [who make up most of his "Straightalk Express" team,] his favors given and received, his early Vietnam “honor” tarnished by his casual political whoring … you know, just business as usual on the Hill. Below the collection, you’ll find links to a couple of wrinkles — Ms. Eisman’s firms connection to both swiftboaters and bubba Jebby. Incest is best in WaDC.

As well, you no doubt heard about Ralph Nader’s announcement. If he’d done his ’same old, same old’ earlier in the race … in order to get his populist talking points across … I would be less bemused by this nonsense. His grudging endorsement of Edwards kept him out — and scuttlebutt at the time of Johns suspending his campaign had Ralph putting together his advisory committee within hours.

So, at this late date, what IS the point? Ralph won’t be moving anybody Left at this juncture, the public is doing that by its demands — if the frontrunners aren’t amenable to delivering the changes they expect in the coming term, they will discover all that down the road … but nothing Ralph tells them now will convince. So I don’t see the good of this … but it’s still America, and he gets to do what he wants [if he can find the financing.] It’s just increasingly difficult to see anything but egomania, here — Nader used to be beloved by many for his consumer alerts and political savvy; we don’t doubt his information now, as then, but we have experience in what putting his name on the ballot can get us … and while he poo-poo’s that ingredient in the Florida hot-pot, it flavors everything that’s happened since.

Here are a few reads on Ralph’s run: the pro, here and here — the con here and here — and this one’s a bit amusing.

Here’s the Mac bedding issues — the first two articles, by Time and Politico, are from the ‘moderate to right’ forums; the next are progressive press, including one that indicates that Barack connected the dots quickly, making the most of a highly exploitable issue given the current climate for accountability. I don’t know if Hil spoke to this or not, didn’t find anything on it … she may be too busy attempting to make her contender irrelevant in Texas and Ohio.

Jude

John McCain’s Very Bad Day
MICHAEL SCHERER, Time mag
Thursday, Feb. 21, 2008

Wayne, Michigan - Anytime John McCain declines to speak to the press, something horrible must be happening.

Back in New Hampshire, McCain held press conferences after every event, taking questions from reporters more often than he’d rub his lucky nickel. In Iowa, he would talk to scribes for hours on his bus, get off and then 30 minutes later hold an avail. The journalists would look at each other, bemused and defeated, with no questions left.

But Thursday was a different matter. In the wake of a scandalous New York Times story suggesting a romantic fling with a lobbyist, McCain arrived at a Ford Focus car assembly plant with a decidedly tense grin plastered across his face. His campaign staff promptly separated anyone with a pen or a tape recorder from the candidate. “The McCain campaign decided who they wanted on the tour, and it’s only photographers,” a nice lady from Ford announced after a reporter spotted the candidate behind a car chassis and tried to approach him.

He certainly needed some time without interrogation. The day started off rocky enough at a morning press conference in Toledo. “It’s not true,” McCain said of the Times piece, as if three words would be the end of it. But the questions kept coming. Did you have a romantic relationship with the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman? “No.” Did you ever talk to your staff about their concerns about his relationship? “No.” Were you closer to Iseman than other lobbyists? “No.” Do you regret writing letters to the FCC on her behalf? “No.” Then McCain’s wife Cindy took the microphone. “My children and I not only trust my husband,” she said, “but know that he would never do anything to not only disappoint our family but to disappoint the people of America.”

Later, as his tour of the Ford plant 50 miles north was winding down, McCain was finally forced to wander over to the print reporters—not to talk, just to look at more cars. He was trailed by a mob of photographers and Cindy, smiling in a black turtleneck, her hair tightly wound. “Very interesting,” he said, just before someone showed him the Escape Hybrid. “This is the future obviously.” Another Ford executive put him in the driver’s seat of a Focus, which could play an iPod on voice command. “Play Abba,” said McCain. But the iPod did not have Abba. It could play The Doors—”Roadhouse Blues.”

Then it was over. The 2 p.m. press conference was canceled, despite the chairs and riser that had been set up for the cameras. The candidate was ushered out of the building, with his family and staff. The press was ushered off to a hotel for three hours in a mirrored dining room, until McCain finished a fund raiser. The campaign entered a rare state of lockdown.

In more peaceable times, McCain calls reporters “my base.” He is chummy even with New York Times stars like Maureen Dowd, and uses Adam Nagourney as a frequent punchline. But the campaign is, at least for now, at war, sending its supporters out to the television networks to spin the story back on the Times. “We need your help to counteract the liberal establishment and fight back against the New York Times by making an immediate contribution today,” wrote campaign manager Rick Davis sent in an email fundraising solicitation. The Republican Party followed suit. “The New York Times has proven once again that the liberal mainstream media will do whatever it takes to put Senator Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama in the White House,” wrote the party chairman, Mike Duncan.

At the end of the day, McCain boarded the plane with his wife, his staff and his daughter, Meghan, who trailed an entourage of friends, bound for Indianapolis. On another night, he would have sauntered to the back to chew the fat with reporters. But on this night, he only came halfway down the aisle, keeping a safe distance. “Everybody happy?” he called out. “Fun day. Fun day.” McCain’s eyebrows bounced up and down to signal his sarcasm.

His question, of course, was rhetorical. He didn’t want to hear anything more. Before anyone could answer he had wheeled around and gone back to his seat, beyond the reach of reporters and their notebooks for just a while longer.

Why the right reluctantly defended McCain
Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei, Politico
February 24, 2008

Conservative leaders often portray their political mission in moralistic terms: right vs. wrong. But their reaction to a news report that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) might have had an inappropriate relationship with a female lobbyist shows the activist right is often animated by a different impulse: us against them.

The right-wing response to the New York Times article was in some ways as stunning, and as revealing, as the salacious story itself.

Some of the loudest voices of the modern conservative movement — Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Gary Bauer, CBN.org — flogged the Times while hardly pausing to consider the underlying facts of the story. Immediately, almost reflexively, these commentators assumed the worst motives and behavior by The Times and accepted McCain’s bland yet broad denials.

Ann Coulter, the right-wing author and commentator, says the collective conservative response is absurd. “Conservatives are stupid to defend McCain from this story,” Coulter told Politico. “Democrats are the party of adultery, not us.” (It is important to note the Times did not use the a-word but reported that McCain aides feared a “romantic” relationship.)

Still, Coulter is the exception to the rule on this one.

John Fund, a Wall Street Journal columnist who talks regularly to all elements of the conservative movement, says many Republican leaders thought they had no choice but to immediately rally behind McCain.

“The timing of the Times story was unfair,” Fund said. “Primary voters have already spoken. So in addition to the anger at the serious weaknesses of the story, if McCain collapsed now, Republicans would be without a nominee.”

Imagine for a moment the story had been about McCain’s possible opponent in the general election, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.). Might the conservatives have paused to ask why he hired Robert S. Bennett, one of the capital’s most fearsome and expensive lawyers?

Might they have wondered why he had flown aboard a private jet with the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman — on a flight paid for by her client? Might they have probed more deeply why she was supposedly hanging around the senator’s planes, office and events often enough that his staff tried to impose an unofficial restraining order on her?

Times made it easier for those who wanted to justify, rationalize or defend McCain’s actions. The paper did not definitively prove McCain was involved in an inappropriate relationship. It used an indirect and elliptical article to suggest more than it proved. Then, the paper tucked the allegation into a story that rehashes other examples of McCain contradicting his claim of being a trustworthy reformer.

The Times’ reporters and editors involved in this story are top-notch. Such stories usually only go into the paper when reporters and their editors feel certain they are true — because they know a vicious response will likely follow.

Most importantly with this one, John Weaver, a former McCain aide, is on the record in the Times story saying he warned off the young lobbyist. McCain denies impropriety, flatly and broadly.

Weaver was quoted in the Times’ article as saying: “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 … Ms. Iseman’s involvement in the campaign, it was felt by us, could undermine that effort.”

The Weaver comments alone would seem enough to give some conservatives pause.

There is a danger in McCain’s unequivocal denial: It is tantamount to a catch-me-if-you-can dare to his political enemies and the media. Already, he appears caught on a few key parts of his denial.

At his news conference the morning the article was published, McCain asserted that he “never spoke directly to” the Times. When the next questioner reminded him that he had spoken on the record to Executive Editor Bill Keller, McCain said: “I’m sorry, I did have one conversation with him.”

The Washington Post on Saturday reported that broadcaster Lowell “Bud” Paxson contradicted McCain’s claim that he never met with Paxson and his lobbyist before writing two letters to the Federal Communications Commission to help Paxson. The lobbyist at the center of the Times story was working for Paxson and involved in helping win McCain’s assistance in the matter.

And Newsweek printed excerpts of a 2002 deposition in which McCain described a conversation with Paxson his campaign now says did not occur.

What conservatives are most concerned about is that additional details will emerge contradicting McCain’s denial of the entire story, especially the most salacious part. What’s not clear is if rank-and-file Republicans share their leaders’ dismissive view of the episode right now.

Still, the snap reaction at the leadership level is very instructive about the state of politics, this election and the conservative movement.

Let’s start with politics. This remains a country at political war, with both sides more distrustful and disdainful of each other than ever before. They not only question the other side’s policies, but its integrity and motives. This is especially true at the grass roots. Everyone from MoveOn.org to the Republican National Committee reacts to every political happening. It’s war over war, or war over morality, or war over experience, or war over whatever. This life-and-death tension helps raise money, sign up volunteers and grab attention.

The conventional assumption before this week was that conservatives dislike and distrust McCain so much that they might sit out the election, or at least temper their involvement in protest. That might happen, but it looks doubtful. In the end, conservatives’ contempt for Democrats, the left and the media will always trump their concerns about McCain’s ideological purity. Heck, look what one Times story did for McCain. Imagine what will happen when the big differences over Iraq, Iran, taxes, health care and immigration come into full view in the general election.

The self interests of both McCain and the movement require them to find common cause. A divorce between the soon-to-be head of the party and the foot soldiers would leave both less relevant.

Tucker Carlson, a conservative commentator who hosts his own show on MSNBC, said the agility of the McCain staff, the article’s flaws, squeamishness about sex stories and conservatives’ distrust of The New York Times all worked in concert to produce the surprise embrace.

“I think the feeling among some of his conservative enemies was: McCain may be annoying, but the Republican nominee is the Republican nominee,” Carlson said.

This episode exposes, more clearly than ever, the business model for big-time conservative activism: Its lifeblood is this us-against-them mentality. It needs an enemy, be it The New York Times, or Obama, or secularism or illegal immigrants.

After all, without a “drive-by” liberal media, we might have less need for Rush Limbaugh.

“I don’t understand why it’s so hard for the people on the Republican Party side to understand who the enemy is and who they’re dealing with,” Limbaugh told listeners the morning the Times story appeared. “This is what you get when you walk across the aisle and try to make these people your friends.”

Day Four: Barack Obama Gets It
TeddySanFran, FireDogLake
Sunday February 24, 2008

Watertiger’s terrific art notwithstanding [open link for pic,] St John McCain’s dalliance with Vicki Iseman isn’t about the lady, it’s about the lobbyists: the lobbyists infesting McCain’s campaign. Barack Obama gets that:

Obama broadened his criticism to McCain’s ties to lobbyists in general, saying, “He takes their money and has put them in charge of his campaign.”

The Illinois senator returned to the subject later, when he said it was indisputable that McCain’s “got his top advisers in this campaign are lobbyists, that many of them have been running their business on the campaign bus while they’ve been helping him.”

An aide said Obama was referring to Charlie Black, and pointed to a recent published report that said the McCain strategist, who is a registered lobbyist, does a lot of work by phone from McCain’s campaign bus.

Also:

The Democratic presidential hopeful also said McCain’s health care plans reflect “the agenda of the drug and insurance lobbyists, who back his campaign and use money and influence to block real health care reform.”

More of this please.

In politics, sex sells
Mary Shaw, Smirking Chimp
February 24, 2008

Advertisers know that sex sells. So they use it liberally to push all kinds of products into our shopping carts.

The media also know that sex sells. So they use it liberally in their coverage of U.S. politics.

A case in point is the new John McCain lobbyist scandal. The New York Times reported recently that McCain’s aides became concerned during the 2000 presidential campaign because they thought McCain was spending too much seemingly cozy time with lobbyist Vicki Iseman.

The mass media’s tabloid-like emphasis on a possible romantic relationship between McCain and Iseman seems to have distracted a lot of people from the real issue — one of ethics and the corruption that so often takes place in Washington when politicians and lobbyists get too friendly. The Larry Craig incident aside, I doubt that this McCain story would have gotten as much mileage if McCain had been spending a lot of time with a male lobbyist rather than an attractive female one.

Former President Bill Clinton knows what it’s like. The House of Representatives actually voted to impeach him for a sexual relationship. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and the Senate acquitted him two months later. This was only the second time in U.S. history that a president had been impeached. And for what? For sex!

Conservatives may argue that it wasn’t the sex, it was the fact that Clinton lied about it. But what man — indeed, what person — hasn’t at some point lied about sex?

Monica Lewinsky did not put this nation at risk. And Congress has since let much more heinous misconduct by the Bush administration slip by without breaking a sweat.

I don’t care if Bill Clinton had an affair with Monica Lewinsky. Bill Clinton’s sex life is not my business. It does not affect me.

When Clinton was president, I was much more enraged by things like Clinton’s support for NAFTA and the Telecommunications Act. Unlike Clinton’s sex life, those things did — and still do — have an effect the average American.

Likewise, John McCain’s possible philandering is not my business. That’s the business of John McCain and his immediate family. It does not affect me.

What does affect me is the revelation that John McCain’s platform of ethics is just so much hot air.

But then, one should not be surprised. It’s politics, after all. And it’s only a little thing called corruption. It’s not nearly as interesting as sex.

And sex — not ethics — is what sells newspapers and air time.

What does this say about the emotional maturity of the American public? And could that explain — at least in part — why our country is in such a mess?

The Scandal That Nearly Destroyed John McCain
Long before the Iseman controversy, John McCain’s role in the Keating Five scandal nearly ruined his Senate career.
Stephen Pizzo, News for Real via Alternet
February 25, 2008

Way back in 1988 my co-authors and I were putting the final touches to our book, Inside Job: The Looting of America’s Savings and Loans when someone slipped us a plain brown envelop. Inside was a transcript of a meeting between thrift regulators and five US senators who had interceded on behalf of Arizona S&L owner Charles Keating. At the time the regulators were warning that Keating’s thrift, Lincoln Savings and Loan, was dangerously insolvent and that Keating and his cohorts — including then junk bond king, Mike Milken, were robbing the federally-insured thrift blind — or, more precisely, robbing the US taxpayers blind.

Keating had been generous in sharing his new-found wealth with the five senators, particularly his two Arizona senators, John McCain and Dennis DeConcini. They became known as “The Keating Five.”

Alarmed by such high-powered political arm twisting, FHLBB attorney, William Black, decided to document the meeting. He claims to this day that he did not secretly record the five senators. But over the years I’ve read countless transcripts and I remain certain that the following is a transcription taken off an actual recording.

Of course, once authenticating the transcript we wasted no time including it in the appendix of our book. The disclosure of the meeting and verbatim remarks by each senator caused them no end of misery. One would have thought McCain especially had learned his lesson about messing with the work of federal regulators. And it appeared he had. But then comes the revelation that he once again chummed up to an industry group — this time telecom — and inserted himself into the regulatory process in ways that look distressingly similar to the Keating affair.

The Keating affair was about money and influence, not sex. This new revelation may or may not have sex in it — but fankly, I couldn’t care less. I don’t lay awake at night worrying if my senator is getting laid by the wrong people, I worry if they are getting paid by the wrong people.

In the case of Charles Keating that money and influence, and the delays caused by political pimping by people like McCain, cost American small shareholders and taxpayers dearly:

Much has been made of the $2 billion that it will cost taxpayers to bail out Charles H. Keating Jr.’s Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. But for the people who were persuaded to invest their life savings in now-worthless securities, the cost is emotional as well as financial.
(NYT - 1989)

Anyway, how often have you wished you could be a fly on the wall at one of these closed-door sit downs? Well, here’s a rare glimpse at one, up close and personal…

[open link to finish article and view memo's]

“This meeting is very unusual … to discuss a particular company.”
~ Chairman, James Cirona, Federal Home Loan Bank, San Francisco, 1987

Did Vicki Iseman “Steal Honor” in THREE Presidential Elections?
emptywheel, FireDogLake
Thursday February 21, 2008

Well, well. Jeb Bush is also connected to Alcalde & Fay (Vicki Iseman’s firm)
seafan, BuzzFlash
Thu Feb 21st 2008, 08:06 PM

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Hahnerei Haus Ehefrauen Interrassisch Filmenackte Kleine junge Teensbehaarte nackte Kostenlos FrauenFrau Uk teilen. Amateurverspritzend Fettlezbian Ebony Pornofilmen Kostenlosmassive Brüste MinkaGeschichte Mutter Vater Sexfucking knebelnd KehleVoyeur pissing Mädchen

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