NPR: Questions Raised About McCain and Lobbyists

Questions Raised About McCain and Lobbyists

As NPR's Juan Williams remarked on Morning Edition, Republican Senator John McCain could not have been too happy when he opened his copy of The New York Times this morning. The Times has a lengthy article about McCain's connection to a series of lobbyists, in particular a woman named Vicki Iseman, 40.

The relationship between the two was so close that the Times writes McCain's closest advisers feared there was a romantic connection - something that both McCain and Iseman have repeatedly denied. But "to his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity."

In fact, McCain has known about the Times investigation since December, when he hired attorney Robert Bennett to handle the Times inquires. McCain's spokeswoman, Jill Hazelbaker, said in a statement last night: "It is a shame that the New York Times has lowered its standards to engage in a hit and run smear campaign . . . Americans are sick and tired of this kind of gutter politics."

But then several hours after the Times posted its piece, the Washington Post published its version on its website. It reported that McCain aides met with Iseman before the senator's 2000 campaign, and asked her to stay away from him because his close association with "a lobbyist would undermine his image as an opponent of special interests, aides had concluded."

McCain himself has called the articles are not true. At a press conference Tuesday morning he said he was "very disappointed in this article." Earlier this year, The Times had given its endorsement to McCain for the Republican presidential nomination.

9:30 AM ET | 02-21-2008 | permalink

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