So as we all know, John McCain is the most ethical presidential candidate in the history of history. He hates lobbyists, eats two or three for breakfast each day. He'd never tell a lie. And he absolutely refuses to take money that isn't given to him by salt-of-the-earth, rock-ribbed Americans like you.
Of course, while we all know that, that picture of John McCain might have a teensy-weensie problem: it's complete and utter crap.
John McCain, as we found out this week, is in bed with lobbyists. No, not that particular lobbyist -- whether they did or didn't is completely beside the point. No, McCain is in bed with lobbyists in the traditional sense: he's a wholly owned subsidiary of them, a man who is quite comfortable with the give-and-take between big business and U.S. senators.
Take John McCain's chief political advisor, Charles Black. Charles Black isn't an old party hand, or a one-time back-bencher who found he did better in the shadows, or a Machiavellian Rove clone. No, Charles Black is a lobbyist, chair of BKSH and Associates, a man who lobbies for General Motors, J.P. Morgan, AT&T, and United Technologies, a firm that, among other things, manufactures aerospace technology for the Defense Department.
Note that I didn't say "lobbied," or "was chair." Black is quite an active lobbyist-slash-chief political advisor. And he's a whiz at multitasking:
But even as Black provides a private voice and a public face for McCain, he also leads his lobbying firm, which offers corporate interests and foreign governments the promise of access to the most powerful lawmakers. Some of those companies have interests before the Senate and, in particular, the Commerce Committee, of which McCain is a member.
Black said he does a lot of his work by telephone from McCain's Straight Talk Express bus.
The bus! Yes, as the Straight Cash Express hurtles through the night, it contains not just John McCain, superhero, but a lobbyist for the very industries John McCain wishes to govern. Very convenient, that. I'm sure this work is totally compartmentalized and never, ever bleeds over from one to the other, aren't you?
But it's okay. John McCain says so.
McCain has long sought to defend his associations with lobbyists, stressing that friendships with them do not influence his independent judgment when it comes to legislative action. In comments to reporters yesterday, he acknowledged those friendships.
"I have many friends who represent various interests, ranging from the firemen to the police to senior citizens to various interests, particularly before my committee," McCain said. "The question is . . . do they have excess or unwarranted influence? And certainly no one ever has in my conduct of my public life and conduct of my legislative agenda."
Sure! Firemen, senior citizens, telecom giants, multinational defense contractors...pretty much all the same, right, folks?
Meanwhile, John McCain is lying, something confirmed by Lowell Paxon himself.
John McCain, quite simply, is a fraud. He's built his reputation as a candidate willing to "stand up for the little guy" and "fight entrenched interests," but he's in bed with those very entrenched interests, and working actively to screw over the little guy. Is it any wonder McCain was strongly in favor of telecom immunity when his chief political advisor is a lobbyist for AT&T? Of course not.
John McCain is a fraud. He's a crooked talker, a liar, and in thrall to corporate lobbyists, and it's ridiculous that it's taken this long for America to find out.
