Which John McCain is running for president?

Posted Feb 23rd 2008 8:53AM by Peter Cohan
Filed under: Scandals, Media World, Politics, Presidential Elections

The Washington Post reports that Lowell Paxson, the client of Alcalde & Fay lobbyist Vicki Iseman with whom John McCain's advisors worried he was having an affair, has contradicted McCain's statement that he had no contact with Paxson regarding his business.

As I posted yesterday, Newsweek reported that McCain denied contact with Paxson -- claiming that he had never even spoken with anybody from Paxson or Alcalde & Fay about the matter. And as Newsweek reported, in McCain's 2002 legal testimony, he contradicted himself: "He [Paxson] wanted their approval very bad for purposes of his business. I believe that Mr. Paxson had a legitimate complaint. I'm sure I spoke to [Paxson]."

In the 1980s, remember, McCain intervened to keep regulators away from Charles Keating, a Savings & Loan operator, who contributed to McCain's campaign and let McCain's wife co-invest in a real estate deal. Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan ultimately failed, costing taxpayers $3.4 billion. What does this have to do with Paxson?

Paxson is another McCain campaign contributor who got service for his money. Paxson said he talked with McCain in his Washington office several weeks before McCain wrote the letters in 1999 to the FCC urging a rapid decision on Paxson's effort to acquire a Pittsburgh TV station. And Iseman was there -- Paxson said, "Was Vicki there? Probably. The woman was a professional. She was good. She could get us meetings."

Which John McCain is seeking the Republic party nomination? The one who denied involvement with Paxson and holds himself up as a paragon of integrity or the 2002 testifier who admitted to meeting Paxson -- a meeting confirmed in today's Washington Post interview with Paxson.

It would help voters to figure out which McCain is running for president before November.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter.

Print this

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

2-23-2008 @ 9:51AM

graydog said...

McCain is a slow learner and has no ability to recognize a lie whether he tell it or some else tells the lie. He cannot understand what the Keating five incident and letter has the do with the letter sent on behalf of Paxson at the urging of Iseman.
This is a serious failing. Even at this late date he does not connect his time as a POW in North Viet Nam to the lies of the Johnsons Administration that a North Vietnamese patrol boat attacked the USS Turner Joy in the Gulf of Tonkin. Johnson used this manufactured incident to stampede the Congress to give him the Authority to expand the war from South Viet Nam to the North. This was called the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Similiarly, he still clings to the lie that this administration had a legitimate reason to invade Iraq based on the lies of men and women who knew better, that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction. That lie also stampeded an unthinking herd of brain dead, and spineless politicians (that does not include Ron Paul and Barack Obama)to give This president the authority to wage war against the Iraqi people. This boy is mentally slow and ethically challenged.

2-23-2008 @ 11:16AM

Yoni said...

Do these articles really belong on bloggingstocks? I honestly fail to see effort to all but scarcely connect these political topics with the world of finance. They only serve to divide readership when written in such an inflammatory manner.

Of course, this is merely my own, possibly minority view of political topics in these settings, but even if one could argue it proper placement, wouldn't it be more appropriate to pass this topic onto an author with a less conspicuous bias towards one specific resolution?

There are two sides to every issue, to acknowledge and convey only one aspect can be seen as bad form for a writer.

2-23-2008 @ 12:08PM

Yoni said...

Upon reading over my previous comment, I feel that it may have potentially taken on a form more brash than indended. I should have formulated a more mature arguement so as to better avoid possible umbrage.