McCain: Ethics for Thee, but Not for Me

Update III: DNC to File FEC Complaint Against McCain Campaign
Update II: Cap Times: Apply McCain Standard to McCain
Update: See also: McCain's Character Is Now Fair Game for Reporters and Blogs

Suppose that Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton were the Chair of the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee.

Suppose further that this hypothetical Committee Chair:

- Was using a corporate president's corporate jet numerous times
- Taking $28,000 contributions from the corporation and its law firm
- Writing unusual letters to the regulatory agency deliberating on aspects of the corporation’s strategic business plans
- Spending a large amount of time with the corporation’s lobbyist who was hyping her access to the Chair
- Lied about conversations with the corporate head
- Writing another unusual letter threatening the regulatory agency with an overhaul if it closed a broadcast ownership loophole crucial to another client of the aforementioned lobbyist
- Utilized the work of a slew of high-powered lobbyists in a presidential campaign
- And all the while, the Chair presented himself as a champion of ethics and the scourge of lobbyists as central tenets of his campaign for the president of the United States

This would bring howls of hypocrisy, arrogance and screaming denunciations quickly bringing the presidential plans of a hypothetical Committee Chair, a Senator Obama or Clinton, to a screeching halt.

But this is precisely the situation with Sen. John McCain the last 10 years, and for the presumptive Republican nominee for the presidency, these circumstances are in the words of McCain’s attorney: No “big deal,” and McCain and Co have graciously moved on to more pressing matters.

See also:
McCain Disputed On 1999, MeetingBroadcaster Recalls Urging FCC Contact

The Anti-Lobbyist, Advised by Lobbyists

Links to Female Lobbyist Exposed, Straight Talker Clams Up

McCain's Statement Contradicts His Own Deposition

Updated III: McCain Disputed On 1999, MeetingBroadcaster Recalls Urging FCC Contact

Update II: The Anti-Lobbyist, Advised by Lobbyists

Update: Links to Female Lobbyist Exposed, Straight Talker Clams Up

McCain's aggressive defense is breaking down.

I wonder if McCain's campaign will call itself a "hit and run smear campaign," engaging in "gutter politics".

Who cares what McCain was doing with the lobbyist personally, good for him; but the reformer is a phoney.

- McCain interceded for donors, data show

- McCain's Statement Contradicts His Deposition

- McCain Comments Distort FCC Matter

From Newsweek:

A sworn deposition that Sen. John McCain gave in a lawsuit more than five years ago appears to contradict one part of a sweeping denial that his campaign issued this week to rebut a New York Times story about his ties to a Washington lobbyist. ...

But that flat claim seems to be contradicted by an impeccable source: McCain himself. "I was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue," McCain said in the Sept. 25, 2002, deposition obtained by NEWSWEEK. "He wanted their approval very bad for purposes of his business. I believe that Mr. Paxson had a legitimate complaint." ...

McCain's subsequent letters to the FCC—coming around the same time that Paxson's firm was flying the senator to campaign events aboard its corporate jet and contributing $20,000 to his campaign—first surfaced as an issue during his unsuccessful 2000 presidential bid. William Kennard, the FCC chair at the time, described the sharply worded letters from McCain, then chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, as "highly unusual."