The Maverick and Commander takes many principled positions...

...and some of them are in the bedroom.

Badda-bing.

The story of McCain and the lobbyist is, as they say, unfolding.  It's not certain that he slept with her but it's plenty obvious that he didn't go out of his way to avoid the appearance of impropriety...or even to avoid actual impropriety.  He might not have rogered her roundly, but he definitely let her lobby him roundly, again and again, which is, as digby says, the real issue.

But then the Maverick and Commander has never been as resistant to lobbyists' charms as he would like us to believe he is.

McCain's always struck me as one of those holier-than-thou types who think that saying the right things is enough.  Somehow their knowing the difference between right and wrong in other people's lives gives them permission not to police it in their own.

McCain hates and despises other Republicans for their hypocrisies, petty vices, cowardice, craven genuflecting to Party bosses, lobbyists, Right Wing clergymen, and all the other GOP Powers-that-be.  But that hasn't stopped him from acting like them whenever he can benefit from it.  Now maybe he hates and despises himself too and his famous bad temper is a symptom of his self-loathing.  But more likely he's just given himself permission.  "I'm a good guy.  I'm a war hero.  I'm a straight-shooter.  I'm the Maverick and Commander.  I follow my own path!"  And if that path takes him into a lobbyist's private plane...or into her bedroom...that's ok, he's allowed, because of who he is and what he's gone through.  You, you poor pitiful schmuck, can talk to him when you've been tortured by the North Vietnamese.

Until then, stay in line.

Frankly, I'm hoping he did have the affair.  And I'm hoping it began a couple years before it became a source of concern to his staff and friends.  I'm hoping they began seeing each other in 1997, if not before.

I'm hoping they were doing it the night before he went into the Senate and voted to convict Bill Clinton.

It would be fun to add his name to the already long list of sanctimonious Republican assholes who were screwing around while they were trying to run Clinton out of the White House for getting a blow job.

_____________________________________

Demosthenes is having some fun with a conspiracy theory.  I hope he's right too.

Update from my high-horse:  For the record, I think it's none of my business whether or not John McCain cheated on his wife going on nine years ago now.  If he did, so soon after the impeachment and while running for President as the straight-shooter, that makes him an even bigger hypocrite than I already know he is, but it also makes him reckless and arrogant.  If he thought he'd be able to get away with what Bill Clinton and Gary Hart couldn't, that would be more proof that McCain has given himself permission to play by different, more forgiving rules than he expects the rest of us to play by.

But whatever the Times story and the follows up that are popping up everywhere now show or don't show about his relationship with Vicki Iseman, the important point is that McCain's very cozy with lobbyists of all kinds, he's very comfortable with that coziness, and he lies about it, tells us he's too good and pure to be that kind of bought and paid for pol in the corporate pocket.  He's no more honest or principled than the next politician on the make.  He may not be any less so either, but he's definitely not the paragon of virtue and integrity he's touted to be.  And yet we'll still be fed stories about what a stand-up guy he is, what a straight-shooter, what a maverick, and the only evidence that he is any of those things is his own say so.

The various denials he and his apologists have issued reek of such sanctimonious bullshit.  "How dare you think that John McCain might have done something wrong!  Don't you know he's John McCain?"

Jadedly updated five minutes later:  Sanctimonious and hypocritical as he is, McCain's denial sounds fairly non-categorical, and as much I want the story to be true, just for laughs, I can't help thinking, "Hello!  It's the New York Times!  Whitewater?  Wen Ho Lee?  Judy Miller?  Wake up, McFly!"

Comments

[Tom Traubert]

Applause.

[MikeT]

It wouldn't be the first time he let a pretty blonde distract him from the fact that he was married. Or have you not heard the story of when John met Cindy? It's a good'un.

[Brian]

Not that I don't feel similarly, but doesn't this rather fall into the category of the press making vague and unsupported suggestions regarding a candidate's sexual behavior? I mean, if the NYT really had the goods on McCain, then by all means nail him, but they don't seem to, do they? The way things are going right now is that it's the denial that is making news, not anything to do with the truth about the allegation. It's a lot more fun when it's being done to the other guy, but if this story ends up going nowhere, it will just be another example of the press engaging in cheap titillation in place of real coverage, and next time it'll be our guy...

[Linkmeister]

I grew up in a Navy family. My father was a Navy Captain, and he and Mom participated in the social whirl that involved. She tells me McCain was not well-liked among that group of senior officers (she thinks there was a sense of entitlement he projected because of his father's standing as CINCPAC), and that he had a reputation as a philanderer back then (1970s). We already know the circs of his divorce and marriage to his current wife (Arizona Republic bio).

I think you've nailed it; he's a "rules are for the other guy" type.

[KC45s]

To be honest, and not to forgive anything, if I had survived years being tortured by the North Vietnamese, I could see myself having a "Look, I've done enough for this country" sort of attitude, and I doubt having to eat the shit dished out by Karl Rove on behalf of a draft dodger in South Carolina would've improved my attitude any.

Again, not to forgive. And I know nothing about politics. Heck, I actually think McCain's sins are the only thing that make him interesting.

If his campaign advisors had any sense, they'd have worked the last seven years trying to humanize the guy, instead of sizing him for a saint's robe. I have a feeling that, wherever the current story goes, we ain't seen nothin' yet regarding the man. And if that's the case, his brain-trust hasn't done him a service setting him up for a fall off a mighty high pedestal. (And yeah, media favoritism or not, I think that's possible. But as I said, I know nothing about politics.)

[actor212]

Why does she look like Judith "Mrs Rudy!" Nathan in a cheesy blonde wig?

[Judith]

actor - eew - are you blind?

[Demosthenes]

That bit you said about coziness may be the narrative from this story that endures. The sexual aspect is a bit too vague--at least right now--for it to be at the heart of things. What it DOES do is add enough of a salacious twist that it'll keep people interested with the real problem: that McCain's principles were (apparently) available to the highest bidder.

This morning I thought that this was the end of the man, but I'm no longer convinced. I think it's more likely that this will cripple him going into the General, and that Obama will be able to use it to bludgeon him into meaty chucks.

[actor212]

actor - eew - are you blind?

Posted by: Judith

I only did it until I needed glasses, so no.