John McCain - One way or another, McCain was in bed with lobbyist
Either John McCain was having a fling with a pretty young (32) lobbyist or he was under her influence in a professional sense. In either case, The Straight Talk Express needs some repairs.
Mr. Straight Talk is caught in a perplexing position. On the one hand, the American people have proved they can forgive adultery. It’s harder to forgive some of Mr. McCain’s other actions in this affair considering HE RIDES AROUND IN A BUS WITH STRAIGHT TALK EXPRESS EMBLAZONED ON THE SIDE OF IT. Come on, if this is not hypocritical, I don’t know what is …
In the years that McCain chaired the Commerce committee, Iseman lobbied for Lowell “Bud” Paxson, the head of what used to be Paxson Communications, now Ion Media Networks, and was involved in a successful lobbying campaign to persuade McCain and other members of Congress to send letters to the Federal Communications Commission on behalf of Paxson.
In late 1999, McCain wrote two letters to the FCC urging a vote on the sale to Paxson of a Pittsburgh television station. The sale had been highly contentious in Pittsburgh and involved a multipronged lobbying effort among the parties to the deal.
At the time he sent the first letter, McCain had flown on Paxson’s corporate jet four times to appear at campaign events and had received $20,000 in campaign donations from Paxson and its law firm. The second letter came on Dec. 10, a day after the company’s jet ferried him to a Florida fundraiser that was held aboard a yacht in West Palm Beach.
McCain has argued that the letters merely urged a decision and did not call for action on Paxson’s behalf. But when the letters became public, William Kennard, chairman of the FCC at the time, denounced them as “highly unusual” coming from McCain, whose committee chairmanship gave him oversight of the agency.
McCain’s campaign denied that Iseman or anyone else from her firm or from Paxson “discussed with Senator McCain” the FCC’s consideration of the station deal. “Neither Ms. Iseman, nor any representative of Paxson and Alcalde and Fay, personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC regarding this proceeding,” the campaign said.