McCain, Loopholes, And The Times Waltz

Stephen Labaton of the Times, one of the bylined reporters on the Times recent hatchet job on McCain, is back with Lots Of The News That's Fit To Print (But All The News That Advances Our Agenda).  His latest - McCain fought to preserve a loophole at which the FCC was looking askance:

Files and McCain Letter Show Effort to Keep Loophole

By STEPHEN LABATON

WASHINGTON — In late 1998, Senator John McCain sent an unusually blunt letter to the head of the Federal Communications Commission, warning that he would try to overhaul the agency if it closed a broadcast ownership loophole.

The letter, and two later ones signed by Mr. McCain, then chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, urged the commission to abandon plans to close a loophole vitally important to Glencairn Ltd., a client of Vicki Iseman, a lobbyist. The provision enabled one of the nation’s largest broadcasting companies, Sinclair, to use a marketing agreement with Glencairn, a far smaller broadcaster, to get around a restriction barring single ownership of two television stations in the same city.

...

On Glencairn, the campaign said Mr. McCain’s efforts to retain the loophole were not done at Ms. Iseman’s request. It said Mr. McCain was merely directing the commission to “not act in a manner contradictory to Congressional intent.” Mr. McCain wrote in the letters that a 1996 law, the telecommunications act, required the loophole; a legal opinion by the staff of the commission took the opposite view.

A review of the record, including agency records now at the National Archives and interviews with participants, shows that Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, played a significant role in killing the plan to eliminate the loophole. His actions followed requests by Ms. Iseman and lobbyists at other broadcasting companies, according to lobbying records and Congressional aides.

 

Dare we ask what the loophole tussle was about?   We dare!  Let's boldly tread where neither Mr. Labaton nor his editors want to go - Glencairn was arguably a sham minority-owned enterprise at a time when the US government and the FCC smiled on minority owned enterprises. 

And how do I know this?  Well, the Times archives are a valuable resource, although I don't think for a moment that Mr. Labaton or his editors needed to access them to glean this fact.

My guess - presenting McCain as lobbying for minority owned enterprises left the Times feeling a bit awkward.  It may well have been the case in 1996 that, regardless of whether Glencairn was a sham, Congressional intent had been to reserve this loophole for other, legitimate (or anyway, politically correct) minority-owned stations.

We can rely on the Times to cover this angle as soon as they are sure they can spin it to hurt McCain.  However, their current story lacks any of the words "black", "African-American", or "minority".  Meanwhile, a Kossack has some useful background, including this wrist-slap of Sinclair and Glencairn when the FCC finally ruled for/against them in 2001.

FWIW:  Edwin Edwards, notional owner of Glencairn, did not have a record of FEC contributions that caught my eye - Dingell, Murtha, Lewis, Clyburn, and Gephardt were on the list with McCain and Burns.

WHERE IS THE ROMANCE?  Like Ms. Bumiller, Mr. Labaton has dropped the romantic entanglement angle in characterizing his recent story:

At a news conference on Thursday, Mr. McCain denounced an article in The New York Times that described concerns by top advisers a decade ago about his ties to Ms. Iseman, a partner at the firm Alcalde & Fay. He said he never had any discussions with his advisers about Ms. Iseman and never did any favors for any lobbyist.

Because the original Times story was all about the ethics.  Uh huh.

Comments

[Jane]

Can we now expect a daily hatchet job on McCain by the Times? I'll set my watch to it.

[clarice]

I'm softshoeing it--With kudos to Jerome Kern and permission to TM to steal for his next headline on the topic

A FINE ROMANCE:

A fine romance, with no kisses
A fine romance, my friend this is
We should be like a couple of hot tomatoes
But you're as cold as yesterday's mashed potatoes
A fine romance, you won't nestle
A fine romance, you won't wrestle
I might as well play bridge
With my old maid aunt
I haven't got a chance
This is a fine romance

[anduril]

Iseman sounds like a talented lady. According to the WaPo:

Iseman, 40, was raised on a farm outside of Homer City, Pa., and attended Indiana University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1990 with a degree in elementary education.

She went to Washington and got a job as a receptionist at Alcalde & Fay in Northern Virginia. Within a year, she had risen to special assistant to the firm's president. She was later promoted to lobbyist and was made the youngest partner in the firm in the late 1990s. She specialized in telecom issues, and one of her primary clients was-based Paxson, which was rapidly purchasing a series of broadcast stations to create a national network.

Sad to see that talent lost to our elementary school students. This a perfect example of what's wrong with our educational system--we don't pay enough to keep the really talented young teachers in the system. From elementary education to specialization in telecom issues. With a flexible intellect like that, think of the good she could have done for the children.

[Daddy]

"A Fine Romance" is an excellent tune. Billie Holiday's version of it is great.

Too bad we don't have any Tin Pan Alley guys available nowadays to write a Musical Spoof of The Waltzing New York Times, complete with catchy tunes and flippant lyrics.

Perhaps a Saturday Night Project for idle JOMer's with idle fingers...

[MayBee]

NYT Ombudsman weighs in.

[Bill in AZ]

"Can we now expect a daily hatchet job on McCain by the Times? I'll set my watch to it."

For the next 8 months - count on it.

[SteveMG]

It's been quite clear for a couple of decades that these minority-owned radio stations and the licensing procedures were a terrific out for larger companies to manipulate FCC regulations and ownership limits.

My guess - well it's more than a guess - is that McCain and others on the committee were willing to allow games to be played with the licensing process with the cover of protecting or helping minority businessmen and women out.

To the benefit of the companies, members of Congress and minorities. A win-win-win for all parties. Except perhaps the tax payer.

My second hunch is that if Congress tried to prevent such shenanigans, the poohbahs on the Times editorial page would be screaming about attempts to silence minority voices.

It does have the effect - a proper one - of knocking McCain down a bit when he self-righteously claims to be the anti-lobbyist crusader.

Small summer storm, though, nothing more.

[anduril]

Steve, I agree. This is very much the downside of having a Senator running for president--especially one with a long track record (unlike Obama, who has virtually NO record). I suspect the MSM will be sniffing around this story for some time to come. Iseman's background is too suggestive for them to just let it go.

[SteveMG]

Speaking of political corruption, real and imagined, keep these handy for tomorrow's "60 Minutes" allegations of Rove's involvement in the prosecution of former Alabama governor Don Siegelman.

Link 1 and Link 2.

The first is a piece by Quinn Hillyer, former editorial page editor of the Mobile Press-Register. The second is by former Press-Register reporter Eddie Curran whose reporting uncovered Siegelman's illegal activity.

The allegations by Jill Simpson on Rove's involvement are risible. That "60 Minutes" apparently uncritically accepted them is appalling.

BTW, Siegelman is a close friend of Al Gore.

[Larry]

Wow, Clarice. I hear the incomparable Ella Fitzgerald. I have all her "songbook" vinyls around here somewhere.

[JM Hanes]

The game's afoot! First you make Vicki Iseman a household name (even if you have to risk your reputation to do it?), then you start the real shooting in your follow-ups -- secure in the knowledge that every time you link McCain & Iseman thereafter, folks will be paying attention to the "news," nodding their heads, and thinking that the smoke they're seeing is actually fire.

I suddenly found myself looking at this little clip on the reporting process from the Times Q & A in an entirely new light as well:

As the story noted, Mr. McCain contacted the newspaper once, calling Mr. Keller to complain about the reporters’ inquiries, in December. The first extensive interview between Mr. McCain’s representatives and the reporting team took place at the lobbying offices of Charles Black, a senior adviser to Mr. McCain, on Dec. 14. In that session, the New York Times reporters requested various documentation, including phone records, office schedules and airplane manifests dating to the 1990s. The reporters followed up with several questions about Ms. Iseman’s lobbying efforts before the senator and his committee. Mr. McCain’s aides agreed to provide as much of the requested information as possible, but noted that this would take some time (they ultimately said they could not locate some of the documentation). Three of the reporters also met with Mr. McCain’s attorney, Robert S. Bennett, at his offices later in December.

The exchange of questions and answers continued off and on until Wednesday, when the newspaper submitted another request for an interview with Senator McCain. That request was denied. And, through Mr. Black, Mr. McCain declined to comment on former associates’ accounts of meetings in which he was confronted with their concerns about his ties to Ms. Iseman.

It almost reads like extorting evidence to me. Do you make McCain's crowd think you're looking for romance, so they'll give you anything you ask for? Or make them think you're looking for corruption, when you're hoping to find evidence of romance in the phone records? Or would just gaining access to every call he made for years be treasure trove enough? Or do you just go around asking provocative questions at a critical point in the primary season, in order to get yourself unparalleled access to a nervous candidate? We still don't know who actually leaked the story to Drudge in December, do we? Was McCain aware there was an endorsement hanging fire when all this was going on?

I'm not sure how the endorsement plays into the story here, but I did notice that Keller passed that question off to the political editor in the Q & A, which struck me as more than odd, since the newsroom honcho -- as he himself made clear -- was in no position to answer it.

I'm not buying a whole conspiracy to derail McCain's candidacy as New York Times policy, but there's something really crummy going on here.

[Daddy]

Mister Smith Goes To The Big Apple

Starring Jimmy Stewart as naive, but honest cub reporter from small town Missouri, showing up at the New York Times as an apprentice.

Scene 1: he meets Editor Pinch Truthburgler, gumshoe Tad Lackogumpshun, and the skirt, Lacey Liesalot. At the meeting for next days headline, Pinch sings the opening number to Jimmy Stewart, explaining Times Journalism.

(Sung to the tune of Tea For Two)

Picture this in Letterhead
Senator McCain with a girl in bed
a Lobbyist in red with a bosum full of favors to plead

Nobody near 'em to see 'em or hear 'em
No aides or relations to confirm negotiations
Lets make up a fable and watch the Conservative bleed

Then day will break and the country will awake
to a story half-baked and completely fake
with anonymous sources and denials from the horse's own mouth

We'll smear our opponent with lies and innuendo
wrapped in the First Amendment as we sing the crescendo,
Oh that's the way that we murder the Truth at the Times.

[kim]

Larry, the Lady Be Good.
===============

[vnjagvet]

Time to roll out "Lobbyists For Truth" to set the record straight.

Doesn't quite have the cachet of SwiftVets, though, does it?

[Ann]

If you thought the NYT was a hatchet job against McCain, wait to you hear what 60 minutes will try and do to Karl Rove tomorrow evening.

Hatchet Job Against Karl Rove

The American Spectator has background:

The False and the Absurd

[Sue]

Ann,

Democrats can't help themselves. They just really want to rally a base that is asleep at the moment.

[Ann]

Sue, you would think that after the demise of Dan Rather they would get a clue. I think these old media farts still haven't figured out the internet and how important it is.

The fact that they don't understand the movement of radio talk "listeners" is another nail in their coffin. As long as, they think we are minded numbed robots, the better. ;)

[Topsecretk9]

Why would Rove want photographs if he could just listen in and tape the corrupt Governor's phone calls?

[Topsecretk9]

Maybe 60's want to do it no matter how fraudulent to screw Dan Rather's lawsuit?

[Topsecretk9]

from SteveMG's LINK

ttached was an article published Jan. 21 in The Independent, under the double headlines, "Siegelman's judge's firm got $18 million contract;" and, "The same day he denied Siegelman's appeal bond."

The article was by Scott Horton, an Internet columnist for Harper's magazine. It began:..Perhaps most importantly, I hope that you hold Scott Horton in contempt for the bully, liar, phony and pompous ass that he is.

Confederate Yankee has detailed a lot outrageous unsubstantiated claims by Horton as well as his own conflict of interests

See Here and Here and Here

and heck, actually there is a lot more on CF about Scott Horton.

[Topsecretk9]

At this point, sanity should have prevailed and Simpson, having pocketed her 15 minutes of fame, should have been forgotten. Instead, Siegelman, Democratic congressional leaders, and national media outlets led by the New York Times cited her statements about the phone call and more as evidence of a political hit job against Siegelman.

To my knowledge, the Birmingham News is the only newspaper that has reported that Simpson had conversations with Siegelman, Scrushy, lawyers for both men, and at least two Siegelman operatives prior to filing her affidavit. This should give anyone pause.

What's more, she also provided background research on Fuller, including ordering a credit report on him - an act of questionable legality...

Gee...wonder where the illegal practice of ordering credit reports came from? Hmmm?

[Jane]

Ralph Nader just announced. He's in!

[clarice]

Gosh--Now I really don't know what to do, Jane.

At AT Baehr looks at Rasmussen and says the tide is shifting in McCain's favor (over O) and pegs that to the reaction to the NYT' smear.O is falling slightly v. Hill and he pegs that to the almost universal reaction to Mrs O's chip on her shoulder proud of America gaffe.

[Pofarmer]

Speaking of Mrs O's chip. I got a link to an article on her senior Thesis.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8642_Page2.html

This passage at the end troubles me.

"I hoped that these findings would help me conclude that despite the high degree of identification with whites as a result of the educational and occupational path that black Princeton alumni follow, the alumni would still maintain a certain level of identification with the black community. However, these findings do not support this possibility."

Who's dividing us again?

[Jane]

Mrs. Messiah really feeds into the whole Manchurian candidate paranoia. As does the meeting with Ayers, the ties with Louis Farrakan and things like that. That will peel away at that level of the electorate that pays just enough attention.

Clarice,

I think it's early for that trend because there is too big of a chance to go in the other direction. Several publications are gonna come out with McCain cavorts with lobbyist hit pieces this week, which will make the NYT piece seem more credible than less. It's not like it's a cabal or anything.

[ben]

"Several publications are gonna come out with McCain cavorts with lobbyist hit pieces this week, which will make the NYT piece seem more credible than less."

Actually, this won't make the NYT article seem more credible, unless there is some shocking sexual twist to it, with evidence....in the world of fast paced news and "gotcha politics", this McCain-lobbyist story is already old news, most people will perceive it as the liberal press following the leader. This topic will be a campaign issue for the Democrats in the general election, no doubt, but it remains to be seen how much mileage they can really get out of it given their ties to special interests of all sorts.

[Pofarmer]

I dunno about Manchurian candidate, but she certainly seems like somebody who isn't comfortable in her own skin. Who would lament about the fact that Blacks or any other minority could blend into the fabric of America?

And with that, I have a little story. I roomed with a Black dude in college for a year. Great guy, smart, had attended private schools in Kansas City. Our dorm floor had a dominate "minority wing" if you want to call it that. Those boys would come over and chit chat, talk about how oppressed they were. Never mind these guys were driving BMW's and Mercede's and I was driving a 1984 Cavalier with 120,000 miles on it at the time,(around 1990). These guys liked to get together and talk about how they needed to form Black Power companies and have Black Power hairspray and Black Power this and that. These are educated guys who obviously had access to money, or something. Yet, they couldn't understand that the very fact that they could sit around and discuss all this was the evidence that they didn't need it. Why make a Black Power product at all? Make the best product you can and market it to everybody, nobody knows your color from the other side of a store isle. I just wish that folks like Michelle Obama fundamentally "got it". That they live in the greatest country in the world, and integrating into the society that made it great is not some sort of "defeat". Indeed, it is victory of the highest level. It's been 150 years since emancipation. How many generations is that? I think it's about time to let this go.

[clarice]

Talked to my 88 year (almost 89) old condo commando southern Fla resident mom this morning. I definitely got the idea that (a) she doesn't think much of Hill or O and (b) she thinks the attacks on McCain are overblown and rather outrageous. I don't think with either of their top candidates the Dems can count on the old timer Jewish vote in Fla. even from people who hae resisted the notion for years that FDR isn't still the guiding hand of the party.

[kim]

Yay, Ralph. A home for disaffected Democrats, and there will be a bunch of them this year.

It's homelessness for the disaffected Republicans. Oh, well. I troll from under a bridge anyway.
=========================

[JM Hanes]

Jane: "Manchurian candidate"

You took the words right out of my mouth. That's what a lot of this oppo research, fellow traveler talk sounds like to me. In the end, what I think we'll be uncovering is a standard issue left liberal couple who are products of the identity based culture they grew up in (a mindset reinforced by Democrats and black politicians for decades), which they see themselves transcending. The fact that so many other folks see them as transcending that divide as well is a good thing, really. If Michelle Obama is finally proud of her country because she's discovered than any child really can dream of being president one day, I'd say that's a good thing too. Beating her up for coming late to the party seems pretty short sighted.

[hit and run]

JMH -- you might say Charlie is an Über Cool Nerd God ... just not the dumb/dorky/awkard kind.

[hit and run]

Ooops, that was meant for the Chiling thread.....

[Larry]

Irony of ironies: Russert asks D. K. Goodwin to comment on Obama's plagiarism.

[Larry]

Irony of ironies: Russert asks D. K. Goodwin to comment on Obama's plagiarism.

[Larry]

Never even hit post on that one. Preview only once.

[Jane]

If Michelle Obama is finally proud of her country because she's discovered than any child really can dream of being president one day, I'd say that's a good thing too. Beating her up for coming late to the party seems pretty short sighted.

JMH,

That certainly is the grown-up take on things. (Just give me a minute to haul myself out of my playpen.)

Okay, I'm out. You've added perspective to all that "hope" stuff. Good.

[MayBee]

It may be short sighted, but I'm going to pile on a little.
If she realizes she's been wrong about the country, that's great. If she thinks the country has just now changed, I still want to be in the playpen a little longer and criticize her for that.

[boris]

Beating her up for coming late to the party seems pretty short sighted.

Sure if one cherry picks the indicators, dismiss the flag pin, pledge, and domestice terrorist pals. There seems to be a little "hope" of the wishful thinking sort here.

I have no problem with the left running an up front unapolagetic charming fellow. Better then the stealth version (RW) I say. I even like them so there.

Just don't fool yourself.

[GMax]

Ralph Nader just announced. He's in!

OK who thinks the Democrats will double down and again actively work to keep Ralph off the ballots in as many states as they can manage?

Apparently Ralph still has quite a few ongoing lawsuits against various defendants Democratic, and if any of them looks promising I would think that having to pay twice would not look so attractive to them.

Besides, maybe with the Messiah, they dont need to try to surpress a guy from exercising his constitutional right of free association.

Liberal Fascism on display in aisle three!

[Rick Ballard]

"Just don't fool yourself."

Now, Boris - if we don't all clap, Victibelle will never leave her cocoon and dry her beautiful wings under the great sun of Hope shining so brightly up in the beautiful sky of Change. She'll remain forever mired in the terrible Slough of Despond and it will be all our fault.

Now, clap for Victibelle - or buy some very warm clothing.

[MikeS]

"Beating her up for coming late to the party..."

I'm calling this idea bunk. Michelle Obama's speech is a "malaise" speech about what is wrong with this country. She expresses the opinion that many Democrats have about this country, but she didn't maintain any deniablity. Most Dems criticize the U.S. for particular things and claim that other than those instances they love and admire the country.

Michelle wasn't that careful. Mrs. Obama describes a specific time when she was "not proud" of her country. She wasn't 'un-proud' because of an incident or a mistake her country had made. She was 'un-proud' for all of her adult life.

That sounds awfully close to the definition of unpatriotic.

[clarice]

Sounds awfully like thousands of nice middle class Black kids shipped off to college to learn to act like street bums or revolutionaries.Ostensibly the colleges are encouraging their attendence because of diversity but once they get there they are herded into separate dorms, organizations, encouraged to believe everyone else is a closet racist, etc. If they're still into that game after sophomore year, you know there's a screw missing.

[GMax]

So apparently after the Paxson Chairman is quoted as saying he thinks he did meet with McCain, today the Paxson President who says it would be rare that a meeting on the matter did not include him, and that he never met with McCain on the subject and seriously doubts the Chairman did either.

So if this story has legs, it must be really short stubby ones.

No evidence of any sexual relationship. Multiple McCain votes on the record against the interest of the company the lobbyist represents. Now its starting to look like the meeting that was suppose to be evidence that McCain misspoke about there not being a meeting, is also at least subject to its own questionability.

Where was Dan Rather when the NYT was cooking up this witches brew? Now that guy knows how to create a real scandal story. Plus Dan would have told them to wait, it just too early and he will have time to respond and everyone will see what putzes you guys in Manhattan really are.

[GMax]

I wonder if Keller is so oblivious that he does not realize that he is being compared to Rather in a lot of venues, and he is coming off looking unfavorable in the comparison!

[centralcal]

"If they're still into that game after sophomore year, you know there's a screw missing."

I would disagree, Clarice. I think there might be too many screws!

Changing subjects, have you seen the picture of Obama in his Somali elder outfit (Sweetness & Light)? I giggled when I saw it, because it reminded me of Kerry in his blue plastic outfit, that made him look like an Easter bunny with his ears lopped off.

[centralcal]

GMax - Keller and Pinch sold their journalistic souls years ago. Nothing fazes them now - not even falling stock value!

[Rick Ballard]

"If they're still into that game after sophomore year, you know there's a screw missing."

You mean if they actually believe the carp, there's a screw loose, right? Because there's a ton of dough to be made if you're good at pretending to believe it. Play it right and you wind up with a million dollar mansion in Hyde Park.

[Jane]

I think the point was that assuming Mrs Messiah has come around she could be an agent of change for the chip-on-their-shoulder community.

The real question is where will her newfound pride go if she loses the election?

[JM Hanes]

MayBee:

I'm suddenly reminded of an old Ogden Nash fav:

If you convinced me
And I convinced you
Wouldn't there still be
Two points of view?

Alternatively, chacun á son playpen! I have a black employee who recently asked me, "Do you think they'll really let a black man be president?" There's a lot she doesn't buy into, from Jesse Jackson to Oprah to victimhood; that question comes straight out of a lifetime of experience. The day the answer is an unequivocal yes is the day a lot of blacks will finally feel empowered in ways that I do think a lot of white Americans fundamentally take for granted. I don't think it's a good reason to vote for (or against) Obama as president, but given the choice between Obama and Hillary, I think it's a major plus.

Ironically, that same employee blames blacks, not whites, for one of the things she resents the most: being called an African-American instead of an American. Regardless of how that term originated, or how cynical race based politics have become, I think being classed as an African-American may be emblematic when it comes to how people think about the "country" they live in. Even as a simple matter of pragmatics, I just don't see the logic of piling on Michelle at what might be a watershed moment for the innumerable others who have grown up feeling just as she did and who would otherwise be following her into the light. IMO, taking people to task for how they ought to feel, instead of what they do, is a dangerous, damaging business.

[JM Hanes]

Jane:

Yes, that's it really. I think actually winning the nomination would be a real tipping point, regardless of the election outcome. It might be affected if the result were a popular landslide for McCain, but barring big surprises, I don't really see that happening.