If other news organizations have more salacious details about McCain and Vicki Iseman, this story may continue. If not, it may fade away and we can get back to talking about McCain's lack of a real plan on health care, his support for continuing tax cuts for billionaires and his strategy of long term military involvement in Iraq.

But as Bill Clinton, Gary Hart and many others can attest, we'd much rather obsess about a tawdry affair than issues that actually affect our own lives.

If you're a glutton for punishment, my full rant on this topic is here:

http://tool4theman.blogspot.com/2008/02/tough-day-at-office-for-john-mccain.html

brad - my daughter and son-in-law will be flying in from Bath, UK, for SXSW. Their band, "Venus Bogardus", will be playing at Zen, probably the 14th, probably at 8:00P, on borrowed instruments with a borrowed drummer. Aside from that, I probably have no plan! Ck out venusbogardus.com if you want to.

Chris - Reports are going out that Clinton plans a legal challenge to Texas Primary Caucaus rules. These guys are sounding like the same Bush Republicans we are sick of.

If I had known McC was going to step in this I would have written him in advance about Hagee. This makes me think that his staff is not very alert. These things do happen in the course of a campaign, but endorsements as unwanted as that of the Catholic Church hating Hagee [or the Jew hating Farrakhan] are especially embarassing. BHO has "handled" Farrakhan, so far, of course.

Rufus often spouts the Hagee line about Catholics on this blog, BTW.

Has Dukes endorsed?

i wonder if mccain stepped in it here? did he not know who Hagee is?

HOUSTON -- The president of the Catholic League today blasted Sen. John McCain for accepting the endorsement of Texas evangelicalist John Hagee, calling the controversial pastor a bigot who has "waged an unrelenting war against the Catholic Church."

Hagee, who is known for his crusading support of Israel, backed McCain's presidential bid Wednesday, standing next to the senator at a hotel in San Antonio and calling McCain "a man of principle."

But Catholic League President Bill Donohue said in a statement today that Hagee has written extensively in negative ways about the Catholic Church, "calling it 'The Great Wh*re,' an 'apostate church,' the 'anti-Christ,' and a 'false cult system.'"

Who is this damned idiot Drudge to whom you regularly refer?

From "The Guardian":

"US political blog, the Drudge report blew the lid on Harry's posting yesterday, ending a voluntary agreement by the British media to keep it secret until he returned.

The MoD described the decision to report the prince's presence in Afghanistan without consulting it as 'regrettable' and said his situation had 'clearly changed' as a result."

Why does the story stop at "Do we have proof that John McCain & Vicki Iseman had intercourse, or do we not?"
John McCain says that Vicki Iseman was (is?) his friend. Enough said.
He DOES REALIZE, of course, that her clients PAY HER TO BE HIS FRIEND?
We have letters showing that on at least 2 occasions he, as chair of the Commerce committee, intervened in an inappropriate and overbearing fashion on behalf of clients of his friend & lobbyist, Vicki Iseman. Both Paxson & Glencairn have stated that Vicki was EXCEPTIONABLY capable at getting access to the senator. Glencairn has stated that until they employed Vicki Iseman, all efforts to reach Sen. McCain had failed.
Moreover, Sen. McCain's efforts on behalf of Vicki's client Glencairn are DOCUMENTED to countervene both his public stance of trust-busting and prudent legal opinion regarding monopolies in communications.
The true & indisputable scandle is that once again, Sen. John McCain allowed his personal friendship to influence law & policy, in such a way as to trade on the privileges of his elected position.
The true scandle is the prostitution of his public trust.

Whether or not would-be Emperor John McCain is wearing any clothes, one predictable outcome is that Vicki Iseman will get an offer from Playboy to be photographed not wearing any clothes. Playboy often makes such offers to attractive women who have achieved a certain level of notoriety. I'm not predicting, however, that she will take Playboy up on the offer.

I couldn't disagree more that the story had no lasting impact. "Emperor Good Government" was shown to have no clothes. The seeds of doubt were sown that will last throughout the campaign, not as worn-on-the-cuff apparent, but as a nagging thorn that won't go away, an obvious contradiction that displays a fundamental flaw in character.

brad - my daughter and son-in-law will be flying in from Bath, UK, for SXSW. Their band, "Venus Bogardus", will be playing at Zen, probably the 14th, probably at 8:00P, on borrowed instruments with a borrowed drummer. Aside from that, I probably have no plan! Ck out venusbogardus.com if you want to.

This "scandal" story did not bode well for the NYT. They are supposed to base their stories on fact, and having a front page article about a rumor did nothing but make the paper look like Weekly World News. Where's batboy when you need him? There was a truth there about lobbyists running his campaign, but it was all lost by the perception, really -- that they were reaching blindly for whatever would make him look bad no matter if it was true or not. Spin it how you like, it was a stretch and cost them a chunk of credibility.

In the end all it did was make McCain more popular with his base after the drop in support he got from their original endorsement of him. Campaigns and news organizations need to watch it with the mudslinging more then they have in the past, the people have much more access and interest in information than ever before. I haven't seen ONE piece of mudslinging yet that hasn't come right back to the person who threw it.

It's a different era, so maybe everyone can learn from that and talk about things that really MATTER.

Mark_in_Austin -
Are you into SXSW.? I will be at Roky's ice cream social. Yes but I am at the computer from 6:30 till 9:00PM.

Barack On!

The way the media have stepped back from this story reminds me of the whole Bush being AWOL from his National Guard duty story all over again. Once one piece of evidence was discredited, the media ran away from the story as if it were plutonium, leaving the basic question unanswered. Now in this case McCain offers one helluva sweeping denial, and the press seems afraid to follow up.

brad, are you filing a ton of extensions?

I mean, it's tax season, guy.

The real damage that McCain is no longer seen as squeeky clean. Against Clinton he would come off that way. Against Obama he comes off as more of the same problem we have in Washington.

It is historically common that such scandals follow a cycle. The accusation occurs, the subject denies, the story submerges, it surfaces, with more detail and more supporting material, the subject denies more vehemently, and so on.

John can't afford a cycle like that through November, because about the third surfacing will be September, to late to replace him and just soon enough to force him to deal with the scandal, and not with his campaign.

Should it turn out that the mud conceals palpable brickbats, McCain will be quite hard pressed, in October, to stay on any message but "I am not a crook."

Won't that be fun.

Cornell...

Pull your head out of your...sand.

Obama is popular nationwide. Fact. The media reflects this, which is their job. Their job is not to lie so they can appear neutral. Their job is to tell the news, and right now the news is that Obama is immensely popular; more popular than any other politician in the United States right now.

Wait till his fundraising totals for February come out. He achieved the impossible - 1 million private donors - a few days ago, and will probably have a haul of $50-60 million for the month, with none of it from PACs or lobbyists.

McCain can't even touch him when it comes to the breadth and passion of his support. Deal with it.

Very telling how the ridiculous WaPo could only find the "fake, but true.." comments I read many comments, and there was much more disgust with the NY Times and their baby sister, the WaPo. but of course, the liberal hacks at the WaPo, the few who survived the last round of layoffs, will fin those not bashing the media. Let's face it -- the media has a Barack obsession bordering on the extremely unhealthy. The commercials of the media picking our president are being made.

the crisis hits the nail on the head as far as I am concerned. No one talks about the story's substance, only the unproven sensationalism. There should be some editors' heads rolling at the grey lady over this.

On the other hand, I did learn about Huma Abedin for the first time as a result of this story...thanks to Boortz. Still looking for pics.

The NYT screwed up on this one by focusing on the relationship "scandal" over the financial scandal.

Here's a story with proof that McCain has attended lobbyist parties on lobbyist yachts, he's flown to and from campaign events on airplanes owned by lobbyists and his staff is rife with even more lobbyists, and yet he's the one who's been clamoring about campaign finance reform and ethics reform in Washington for the past decade.

Had the NYT focused on the facts and not innuendo, this would have been a much bigger story. But they overshadowed their strongest case against him and it cost them dearly in terms of reputation and impact.

Looking at the polls, McCain immediately picked up a couple of points among swing voters in LV polls (e.g. Rasmussen). Also, only 24% now have a favorable impression of the NYT. I don't think those voters who moved are suddenly solid for McCain, and I'm hopeful they'll move back as the story fades and they decide that the economy and Iraq are more important than sticking it to the liberal media.

But the article did spur a drip, drip, drip of stories about lobbyists and McCain's personality - see George Will today or E.J. Dionne's latest column. Wonder if those articles will have any impact.

The WaPo strikes out at the NYT:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/25/AR2008022501089.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter

Funny. That's what has become of this non-event.