John McCain has a big problem.
Stories about his alleged tryst with a lobbyist who lobbied his own Senate council are starting to leak out there. Now, a ten year old allegation, that’s not too much to worry about under normal circumstances. And the simple allegation, the singular NYT piece by itself, is not the problem.
Basic damage control spin is all that is required. It’s rudimentary politics. All you have to do is play it cool, stick with the program. And whatever you do, don’t lean to far forward and say something rash. Oops:
McCain Says Report on Lobbyist Not True – washingtonpost.com
“I’ve served this nation honorably for more than half a century,” said McCain, a four-term Arizona senator and former Navy pilot. “At no time have I ever done anything that would betray the public trust.”
So, I guess that whole Keating Five thing was no big deal, then. How quickly we forget when we’ve decided that we’re “The Maverick Senator.”
But this is clearly overreach. It’s a wild swing that tends to make me think there’s something here. Chuck Todd spoke on Keith Olbermann’s program and seemed to indicate that the story was probably a mere tip of the iceberg.
And I do wonder if this wasn’t the reason John McCain’s Straight Talk Express went so crooked during the 2004 election. Most of us who paid attention noticed an incredible about-face in 2003, when suddenly McCain was buddying up to the man he barely talked to after the 2000 election, George Bush. He seemed in the grip of some other force that made him suddenly support the war he’d criticized before; something that forced him onto the stage at Bob Jones University, home of those he’d previously referred to as “the agents of intolerance.” Was this it?
Or is there more we haven’t heard about yet? Because if there is, you can bet whatever deals with the devil he made four years ago are off now that the Hard Right has decided that he’s the enemy and Mike Huckabee is the savior.
