| 22nd February 2008 01:41 PM |
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| monkey_man |
The McCain World Rift
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: February 22, 2008
The staff of the McCain campaign had a rude awakening last Jan. 25th. They opened The Washington Post and found a front-page story linking McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, to the Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska. Who, some wondered, was feeding damaging information about Davis to the press?
Speculation inevitably settled, as it must in McCain World, upon John Weaver. For nearly a decade, stories about the inner workings of the McCain apparatus inevitably involved the Weaver-Davis rivalry. These two McCain advisers share a mutual hatred, one McCainiac told me Thursday, that is total, absolute and blinding.
The tensions, which divided the McCain presidential campaign until Weaver was forced out last summer, exist on many levels. First of all, there is a personal contest for the attention and love of John McCain. But there are broader issues as well.
Davis is a creature of the political mainstream. He is even-tempered and charming. He is a lobbyist and a friend of lobbyists. He is a good manager. In policy terms, his tastes tend toward the Republican center.
Weaver is a renegade. He has a darker personality. He’s not a member of elite Washington circles and resented the way McCain would occasionally get pulled into them. Weaver is a less effective bureaucrat, but his policy instincts are more daring and independent.
The Davis-Weaver rivalry has lasted for so long because John McCain has a foot in each camp. McCain is, on one level, a figure of the Washington mainstream. He admires Alan Greenspan and Henry Kissinger. He appreciates a steady manager like Davis.
But McCain is also a renegade and a romantic. He loves tilting at the establishment and shaking things up. He loves books and movies in which the hero dies at the end while serving a noble, if lost, cause. He loves the insurgent/band-of-brothers ethos that Weaver exudes.
McCain was loyal to each camp in a house divided. But the poisons emanating from the rift have spread outward. They are the background for the article my colleagues at The New York Times published Thursday.
At the core of that article that began on the front page are two anonymous sources. These sources, according to the article, say they confronted McCain in 1999 with their concerns that he was risking his career by interacting with Vicki Iseman. As a columnist, I’m an independent operator, speaking for myself alone. I have no idea who those sources are. But they are bound to come from the inner circle of the McCain universe. The number of people who could credibly claim to have had a meeting like that with McCain in early 1999 is vanishingly small. I count a small handful of associates with that stature, including Davis and Weaver. There is nobody in that tight circle unaffected by the hostilities that emanate from the rift.
Thursday, as McCain was fervently and completely denying the allegations of an affair with Iseman, people in all quarters of the McCain universe were vehemently denying it, too. But even on this embattled day, they broke down into rival camps over the identity of the sources.
Many in the Davis camp argued Thursday that Weaver must be the chief anonymous source, and that he had roped in one other confederate. He’s had a hard life, they said, and is driven by demons.
Weaver countered by telling reporters that he retains enormous affection for McCain and desperately wants him to become president. Moreover, Weaver had been trying to get back into the fold. There is no way he would be an anonymous source against McCain. Some closer to Weaver theorized that the sources must be former McCain campaign elders from 2000 who worked for rival campaigns in 2008.
I checked that possibility out, and it doesn’t hold water. But while calling around to a dozen senior McCain friends and advisers Thursday, what struck me was the enormous tragedy of the rift. They all love McCain. They all say it is absurd to think he abused his power in the way that is alleged. But the rift is like some primal sore. It affected every conversation I had Thursday, as it has infected McCain efforts again and again over the past many years.
At his press conference Thursday, McCain went all-in. He didn’t just say he didn’t remember a meeting about Iseman. He said there was no meeting. If it turns out that there is evidence of an affair and a meeting, then his presidential hopes will be over. If no evidence surfaces, his campaign will go on and it will be clear that there were members of his old inner circle consumed by viciousness and mendaciousness.
But lingering over everything is the bitterness of the rift, which has caused duplicity and anger to seep into the campaign of this fine man. The poisons have yet to be drained.
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| 22nd February 2008 01:45 PM |
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| Factory Girl |
quote:
gypsy wrote:
Some people have been calling Obama "The Pope of Hope."
The Pope of Dope is more like it. |
| 22nd February 2008 01:54 PM |
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| monkey_man |
quote:
Factory Girl wrote:
The Pope of Dope is more like it.
Who? Obama or Pete Dougherty? |
| 22nd February 2008 01:57 PM |
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| Fiji Joe |
A Hole in McCain’s Defense?
An apparent contradiction in his response to lobbyist story.
By Michael Isikoff | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Feb 22, 2008 | Updated: 11:33 a.m. ET Feb 22, 2008
Related:John McCain Vicki Iseman Floyd Abrams
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.
On Wednesday night the Times published a story suggesting that McCain might have done legislative favors for the clients of the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, who worked for the firm of Alcalde & Fay. One example it cited were two letters McCain wrote in late 1999 demanding that the Federal Communications Commission act on a long-stalled bid by one of Iseman's clients, Florida-based Paxson Communications, to purchase a Pittsburgh television station.
Just hours after the Times's story was posted, the McCain campaign issued a point-by-point response that depicted the letters as routine correspondence handled by his staff—and insisted that McCain had never even spoken with anybody from Paxson or Alcalde & Fay about the matter. "No representative of Paxson or Alcalde & Fay personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC," the campaign said in a statement e-mailed to reporters.
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."
While McCain said "I don't recall" if he ever directly spoke to the firm's lobbyist about the issue—an apparent reference to Iseman, though she is not named—"I'm sure I spoke to [Paxson]." McCain agreed that his letters on behalf of Paxson, a campaign contributor, could "possibly be an appearance of corruption"—even though McCain denied doing anything improper.
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."
The issue erupted again this week when the New York Times reported that McCain's top campaign strategist at the time, John Weaver, was so concerned about what Iseman (who was representing Paxson) was saying about her access to McCain that he personally confronted her at a Washington restaurant and told her to stay away from the senator.
The McCain campaign has denounced the Times story as a "smear campaign" and harshly criticized the paper for publishing a report saying that anonymous aides worried there might have been an improper relationship between Iseman and McCain. McCain, who called the charges "not true," also told reporters Thursday in a news conference that he was unaware of any confrontation Weaver might have had with Iseman.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/114505 |
| 22nd February 2008 01:59 PM |
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| glencar |
quote:
Mikey wrote:
I am neither pro-dem or repub, yet still don't understand the outrage of the McCain story?
The guy's the Republican lead nominee for President, has a interesting past, somewhat checkered (keating 5, hopping the corporate jet, cheating on his wife) and the Times ran a story based on, at this time, anonymous sources that reported that mccain had an inappropriate relationship with a lobbyist that they thought might be romantic. That's not a story? Also, anonymous sources doesn't mean the Times doesn't know their identity and would use it to fact check. So the fact that they won't go on the record disproves their insight?
Was mccain smeared? perhaps, but this is not a story on the pope. in other words, the guy's definetly got an "interesting" background in politics and therefore, I don't think the story's entirely out of line when referencing the lead character.
If anyone has a problem with my opinion, please attack it, not me.
Mikey, there have been persistent rumors that Bill Clintoon is diddling aging starlet Gina Gershon. Should that be a story in this campaign? Various off the record types are saying it. I know McC cheated on his first wife but that was a lifetime ago. This story is of the type that got the Times into trouble with the Jayson Blair scandal. It's shoddy journalism. |
| 22nd February 2008 02:04 PM |
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| pdog |
This is good news for Republicans, he's accused of an affair with a woman. |
| 22nd February 2008 02:06 PM |
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| glencar |
It probably doesn't hurt that it was the NY Times doing the accusin'! |
| 22nd February 2008 02:07 PM |
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| Fiji Joe |
quote:
pdog wrote:
This is good news for Republicans, he's accused of an affair with a woman.
That's what I keep sayin' |
| 22nd February 2008 02:20 PM |
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| Factory Girl |
quote:
monkey_man wrote:
Who? Obama or Pete Dougherty?
BOBAMA. |
| 22nd February 2008 02:22 PM |
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| glencar |
He referenced his teenage mistakes in that debate & then she talked about Bill's mistakes in response to what was the most trying moment of your life. I hope Barry doesn't get to the Presidency but he's already served his country well by not allowing a Clinton near the White House again. God Bless Barry! |
| 22nd February 2008 03:35 PM |
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| mojoman |
quote:
pdog wrote:
This is good news for Republicans, he's accused of an affair with a woman.
yep it would have been different if he would have done a larry craig |
| 22nd February 2008 05:00 PM |
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| sirmoonie |
The FBI kept close tabs on draft dodgers during the Vietnam War.
From the Bureau's Willard Romney file, an account of his subversive activities in France during the height of the War Against Communism:
Even then, Willard's acumen in selling absolute drivel to idiots was evident. |
| 22nd February 2008 05:09 PM |
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| pdog |
Moonie, you do know that Romney dropped out of the race? McCain will be running against a black man, you should put forth energy going after blacks and viet nam... |
| 22nd February 2008 05:14 PM |
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| Starbuck |
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| 22nd February 2008 05:16 PM |
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| Fiji Joe |
quote:
pdog wrote:
Moonie, you do know that Romney dropped out of the race? McCain will be running against a black man, you should put forth energy going after blacks and viet nam...
Here's what the smartest black man in America had to say about John McCain...
January 25, 2008 12:00 AM
McCain’s Age
Old-time common sense.
By Thomas Sowell
Among the painful signs of our time are the shocked reactions to Chuck Norris’s raising the question of whether Senator John McCain is too old to be president.
Have we reached the point where we have so many politically correct taboos that we can’t even talk sense?
Does a man in his seventies have less energy for either physical or mental tasks than someone younger? Those of us who are in our seventies know darn well that we can’t do everything we used to do, as well as we used to do it.
It was appalling to me when my driver’s license was renewed last year without my having to get behind the wheel of a car and demonstrate that I still could drive safely.
Even if my own driving was still all right, I could get killed by some other old-timer whose driving was not all right — and who had not been tested behind the wheel for many years.
While teenagers have high rates of fatal accidents, the decline that sets in as they mature does not continue indefinitely. The rate of fatal accidents declines to a plateau in middle age — and then begins to rise again for older people, until old-timers eventually reach the point where their rate of fatal accidents is at least as high as that of teenagers.
It is not just in physical tasks that age takes its toll. Even when our minds remain sharp, our energy levels are seldom the same, and that affects how long we can concentrate on a given day without taking a rest.
It is easy enough for me to take an afternoon nap and wake up refreshed, especially since my younger research assistants are working while I am dozing, and have plenty of material ready for me when I am ready to resume work.
But a president of the United States has to be ready to take on any crisis that arises anywhere in the world, at any hour of the day or night.
And if he has to deal with it around the clock, then he just stays awake around the clock to deal with it.
It can be a killing job. You need only look at pictures of Abraham Lincoln when he took office and compare them with the pictures of him just a few years later, when he looked like he had aged at least ten years during the Civil War.
Look at pictures of Franklin D. Roosevelt taken in 1940 and compare them with pictures of him taken in 1945, after World War II had taken its toll.
Today we know that FDR’s doctor had put him on a restricted schedule — and that still was not enough to keep him from dying in office, just a few months after he began his final term as president.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was younger when he died than John McCain is right now. Moreover, FDR had not been abused for years as a prisoner of war.
When we are talking about a president of the United States, we are not talking about the fate of one individual, but the fate of a nation and of generations yet unborn.
This is no time to get squeamish or politically correct, when talking about whoever is to carry the load of the free world on his shoulders in the White House.
Quite aside from age, there is all too much evidence already that John McCain is not the kind of man who has given in-depth thought to many of the serious issues on which he shoots from the hip, which some people equate with “straight talk.”
The media have dubbed him a “maverick,” which is another way of spinning the fact that he is headstrong and unreliable.
Senator McCain’s teaming up with Senator Ted Kennedy on immigration, and with equally left-wing Senator Russ Feingold to violate the First Amendment in the name of “campaign-finance reform,” are classic examples of a loose cannon.
Senator McCain is not a bad man. He has some admirable qualities. But there are plenty of good people who would be dangerous in a job for which they are not suited.
Back in the 18th century, Edmund Burke said that some people “may do the worst of things without being the worst of men.” The White House is not the place for that.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZWJjYzgzNjIwMGUwNzdmNTJkYjcyYmYyNzIzMTY4ZTY= |
| 22nd February 2008 05:26 PM |
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| pdog |
Agism is the new racism? |
| 22nd February 2008 05:30 PM |
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| Fiji Joe |
quote:
pdog wrote:
Agism is the new racism?
Some people are calling McCain "the pope of myope"
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| 22nd February 2008 05:33 PM |
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| pdog |
quote:
Fiji Joe wrote:
Some people are calling McCain "the pope of myope"
I have one question, where was he when Jesus was killed, his alibi doesn't pan out. Seems Mary Magdelin was lying about the affair... |
| 22nd February 2008 05:50 PM |
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| Dan |
quote:
pdog wrote:
Agism is the new racism?
Ever since fat people became a majority. |
| 22nd February 2008 05:53 PM |
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| lotsajizz |
THAT'S Postin'!! |
| 22nd February 2008 07:03 PM |
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| gypsy |
quote:
Riffhard wrote:
Oh I like that!
It's an Obamanation! Or is that Abomination?
Yes we can! Si, Se Puede!
Riffy
Red Eye fan? |
| 22nd February 2008 07:05 PM |
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| Riffhard |
quote:
gypsy wrote:
Red Eye fan?
Not really. The shows ok, but I'm usually watching porn at that hour. Why? Did they use that line?
Riffy |
| 22nd February 2008 07:07 PM |
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| pdog |
Better a RINO than a HOMO, heh? |
| 22nd February 2008 07:09 PM |
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| gypsy |
quote:
Riffhard wrote:
Not really. The shows ok, but I'm usually watching porn at that hour. Why? Did they use that line?
Riffy
Yes! They did use that line - Obamanation.
They also read my email on Wednesday's show. I was just sitting there, watching it Wednesday morning - I had recorded it, since it comes on so late - and heard my name. It woke me right up - and I also won a bet I had with my man that they would read my email before they would read his.
I used to think the show was lame, but it's actually really funny, and it's something J and I can watch together. |
| 22nd February 2008 07:11 PM |
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| Riffhard |
quote:
gypsy wrote:
Yes! They did use that line - Obamanation.
They also read my email on Wednesday's show. I was just sitting there, watching it Wednesday morning - I had recorded it, since it comes on so late - and heard my name. It woke me right up - and I also won a bet I had with my man that they would read my email before they would read his.
I used to think the show was lame, but it's actually really funny, and it's something J and I can watch together.
Really?! Wow, that must have been cool for you. What did you write in the e-mail?
Riffy |
| 22nd February 2008 07:30 PM |
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| robpop |
This thread is at almost 150 posts without one mention of the Black Crowes. Impressive. |
| 22nd February 2008 07:43 PM |
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| Factory Girl |
quote:
Riffhard wrote:
Not really. The shows ok, but I'm usually watching porn at that hour. Why??
Riffy
Why am I not surprised?
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| 22nd February 2008 07:51 PM |
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| pdog |
quote:
robpop wrote:
This thread is at almost 150 posts without one mention of the Black Crowes. Impressive.
Pointing out they haven't been mentioned, is mentioning them... What were you thinking? |
| 22nd February 2008 08:14 PM |
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| monkey_man |
All those who fear an Obama presidency can rest assured he won't make it. It looks like the secret service wants to do him in . . . in Dallas no less!
Police concerned about order to stop weapons screening at Obama rally
http://www.star-telegram.com/dallas_news/story/486413.html
By JACK DOUGLAS Jr.
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
DALLAS -- Security details at Barack Obama's rally Wednesday stopped screening people for weapons at the front gates more than an hour before the Democratic presidential candidate took the stage at Reunion Arena.
The order to put down the metal detectors and stop checking purses and laptop bags came as a surprise to several Dallas police officers who said they believed it was a lapse in security.
Dallas Deputy Police Chief T.W. Lawrence, head of the Police Department's homeland security and special operations divisions, said the order -- apparently made by the U.S. Secret Service -- was meant to speed up the long lines outside and fill the arena's vacant seats before Obama came on.
"Sure," said Lawrence, when asked if he was concerned by the great number of people who had gotten into the building without being checked. But, he added, the turnout of more than 17,000 people seemed to be a "friendly crowd."
The Secret Service did not return a call from the Star-Telegram seeking comment.
Doors opened to the public at 10 a.m., and for the first hour security officers scanned each person who came in and checked their belongings in a process that kept movement of the long lines at a crawl. Then, about 11 a.m., an order came down to allow the people in without being checked.
Several Dallas police officers said it worried them that the arena was packed with people who got in without even a cursory inspection.
They spoke on condition of anonymity because, they said, the order was made by federal officials who were in charge of security at the event.
"How can you not be concerned in this day and age," said one policeman.
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| 22nd February 2008 08:38 PM |
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| sirmoonie |
quote:
pdog wrote:
Moonie, you do know that Romney dropped out of the race? McCain will be running against a black man, you should put forth energy going after blacks and viet nam...
Wrong. He "suspended" it. Plus, he's the only candidate that has an endless source of lifestyle choices worthy of scorn and ridicule by real Americans. Did you see how many copies of the Book of Morman he dished out over the runner-up Mormo? Tell me that isn't funny. And I mean gay/weirdo funny, not funny funny. |
