http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/orl-ed22108feb22,0,2505177.storyOur position: McCain didn't live up to his principles in dealings with lobbyist
February 22, 2008
Republican presidential front-runner John McCain tried to snuff out the controversy over a New York Times story about his relationship with a female lobbyist, but he instead raised doubts about the central theme of his candidacy -- his commitment to ethics.
The salacious suggestion that he had a romantic relationship with the lobbyist will be debated, no doubt, for days to come. But what isn't in dispute is that he gave this lobbyist -- whose clients sought his support on key issues and often got it -- extraordinary access.
While Mr. McCain's personal life is no doubt of interest to many voters, his commitment to his declared principles for governing is more important.
According to the Times, some of Mr. McCain's advisers in his 2000 presidential campaign became so worried that he was having an affair with the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, that they tried to keep the two apart. In a news conference, he flatly denied that any of his advisers had confronted him about Ms. Iseman, as the Times reported. He also denied granting her or any other lobbyists special access as former chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.
Certainly in her case, that strains credulity. Mr. McCain attended a Miami fund-raiser with Ms. Iseman, for example, then flew with her back to Washington, D.C., on a corporate jet owned by one of her clients. Most people outside Washington would view this arrangement as the very definition of special access.
Mr. McCain offered the weak defense that such a trip "was an accepted practice." This "everybody did it" excuse is pitiful from a senator who has crusaded for ethics reform in Congress.
Mr. McCain also undercut his credibility when he denied having spoken to the Times about the story, then admitted having called the newspaper's editor about it.
Mr. McCain defended writing letters to federal regulators urging them to resolve a case involving one of Ms. Iseman's clients. Yet his efforts in the 1980s to intervene with regulators for friend and campaign fund-raiser Charles Keating almost destroyed his political career.
In his 2002 memoir, Mr. McCain wrote that the Keating 5 scandal taught him that "questions of honor are raised as much by appearances as by reality in politics . . . they need to be addressed no less directly than we would address evidence of expressly illegal corruption." By this logic, Mr. McCain's rebuttal of the admittedly years-old allegations in the Times would have been far more convincing if he had acknowledged at least the appearance of impropriety.
Mr. McCain's campaign Web site declares, "Restoring Americans' confidence in their government is what's at stake in this election." He can start by restoring confidence in his own candidacy.
Copyright ? 2008, Orlando Sentinel
