LIEBERMAN TO THE RESCUE? WELL... THE LADY DOTH PROTEST TOO MUCH

Headed to Foggy Bottom? Or History's garbage dump?

Although he has tried to spin it otherwise, Joe Lieberman is married to a lobbyist for Big Pharma. Hadassah Lieberman, who never registered as a lobbyist and refuses to say what services she performed for one of Washington's biggest and best connected lobbying outfits, worked for a smarmy firm known as Hill & Knowlton which has had a repulsive list of clients eager for special treatment from the government-- from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam and Uganda to GlaxoSmithKline, Big Tobacco, Sankyo Pharmaceuticals, AIG, Enron, the Nuclear Energy Institute, and WalMart. Lieberman's other wife, his political wife, John McCain, has also been in bed, for his entire career, with lobbyists. So, although Lieberman was the first Democrat to stab Bill Clinton in the back when Republicans hurled charges at him about Monica Lewinsky, it was no surprise to anyone when he quickly stood up to defend the man who he hopes will make him Secretary of State. Lieberman is slated to play the Zell Miller role at this year's Republican National HateFest Convention in Minneapolis.

Yesterday, however, Lieberman went even further in his defense of the honor of his sleazy best friend. Of course he vouched for McCain's marital fidelity: "I've been with him on a lot of occasions, traveled all around the world, been at meetings with a lot of women there, and I've never seen him do anything that even approached inappropriate behavior." It's laughable to think of a life-long admited whoremonger like John McCain, now in his 70s, lunging at some unfortunate woman at a conference with Lieberman (and Lindsey Graham) flanking him. Not quite the way it works.

Allow me to take a little detour for a moment. I'm not sure if Cindy McCain called David Vitter's wife, Wendy, or Suzanne, Larry Craig's "wife"-- or even Hillary-- to ask for some tips on handling the press when the old man's improprieties are dragged out into the public spotlight. She certainly knew McCain has had a life with zero respect for marital fidelity since she's presumably read the books and articles where he's admited running around on his first wife. In fact, she's aware of it because he was still married when he took up with her. Maybe she's just... naive. Here is the statement McCain's PR ops wrote for her to read to the media yesterday: "More importantly, my children and I not only trust my husband, but know that he would never do anything to not only disappoint our family, but disappoint the people of America. He's a man of great character." Interesting since many people have speculated that it was Cindy McCain who made the decision to prohibit lobbyist Vicki Iseman from being allowed into McCain's Senate office. Allegedly it was Cindy who called the McCain aides and told them, in no uncertain terms, that they had better keep Iseman away from her husband. Now, back to the arbiter of moral purity, Holy Joe.

Lieberman, who has staked what ever is left of his shabby and tattered political career on McCain's slim chances to extend the hated Bush Regime for another term, got into high dunder mode at the thought of McCain's carefully laid public relations offensive finally bogging down. Never one to botch his Republican talking points, Lieberman let loose at all the targets the McCain PR machine has mapped out:

"I honestly think the story in the New York Times about Sen. McCain raises more ethical questions about the New York Times than it does about Sen. McCain," Lieberman said. "Here's a man who's devoted his whole life to service to his country. His honor matters a lot to him."

The Times did not report that McCain had an affair, but it described his staff as concerned eight years ago that McCain was far too close to a telecommunications lobbyist, Vicki Iseman. McCain and Iseman have denied any impropriety.

"This a story that basically pukes up 8-year-old rumors, uncorroborated," Lieberman said.

Lieberman then gave McCain a broad character reference.

"Given a choice of believing an unsubstantiated, uncorroborated story in the New York Times or believing John McCain, I'm sticking with John McCain," Lieberman told reporters.

Lieberman, a member of the Senate Democratic caucus who endorsed the GOP presidential candidate in December, said he spoke with McCain after the Times posted the story Wednesday night.

"He is a man of honor and nothing I read in the New York Times story changed my opinion of him," Lieberman said. "I'm sticking with you, John."

He has scant choice. The Man of Honor meme, though, is starting to wear a bit thin as more and more people start to examine the Real McCain and find a tawdry, self-serving, hack whose only relation to honor are baseless claims repeated ad nauseum by himself, grasping sycophants like Lieberman, and by a press far too long in the thrall of McCain's shallow charms. But regardless of the silliness about a serial adulterer engaging in adultery again-- as though to send a subliminal message that he can still get it up-- the real story of McCain being in bed with lobbyists is now part of the conversation. And it should be. McCain's campaign, completely run by lobbyists, is claiming he's never done a favor for a lobbyist. You'd have to be Joe Lieberman or Lindsey Graham to repeat that with a straight face.

...[W]hen McCain huddled with his closest advisers at his rustic Arizona cabin last weekend to map out his presidential campaign, virtually every one was part of the Washington lobbying culture he has long decried. His campaign manager, Rick Davis, co-founded a lobbying firm whose clients have included Verizon and SBC Telecommunications. His chief political adviser, Charles R. Black Jr., is chairman of one of Washington's lobbying powerhouses, BKSH and Associates, which has represented AT&T, Alcoa, JPMorgan and U.S. Airways.

Senior advisers Steve Schmidt and Mark McKinnon work for firms that have lobbied for Land O' Lakes, UST Public Affairs, Dell and Fannie Mae.

This morning Newsweek's Michael Isikoff points out that there are some serious holes in his the claims of innocence only a Lieberman would find credible.

A sworn deposition that Sen. John McCain gave in a lawsuit more than five years ago appears to contradict one part of a sweeping denial that his campaign issued this week to rebut a New York Times story about his ties to a Washington lobbyist.

On Wednesday night the Times published a story suggesting that McCain
might have done legislative favors for the clients of the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, who worked for the firm of Alcalde & Fay. One example it cited were two letters McCain wrote in late 1999 demanding that the Federal Communications Commission act on a long-stalled bid by one of Iseman's clients, Florida-based Paxson Communications, to purchase a Pittsburgh television station.

Just hours after the Times' story was posted, the McCain campaign issued a point-by-point response that depicted the letters as routine correspondence handled by his staff--and insisted that McCain had never even spoken with anybody from Paxson or Alcalde & Fay about the matter. "No representative of Paxson or Alcalde & Fay personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC," the campaign said in a statement e-mailed to reporters.

But that flat claim seems to be contradicted by an impeccable source: McCain himself. "I was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue," McCain said in the Sept. 25, 2002, deposition obtained by Newsweek. "He wanted their approval very bad for purposes of his business. I believe that Mr. Paxson had a legitimate complaint."

While McCain said "I don't recall" if he ever directly spoke to the firm's lobbyist about the issue-- an apparent reference to Iseman, though she is not named- -"I'm sure I spoke to [Paxson]." McCain agreed that his letters on behalf of Paxson, a campaign contributor, could "possibly be an appearance of corruption"-- even though McCain denied doing anything improper. [He always does, even when caught red-handed; that's his history. And we do NOT need another George Bush in the White House-- only a meaner and more volitile version.]

McCain's subsequent letters to the FCC--coming around the same time that Paxson's firm was flying the senator to campaign events aboard its corporate jet and contributing $20,000 to his campaign-- first surfaced as an issue during his unsuccessful 2000 presidential bid. William Kennard, the FCC chair at the time, described the sharply worded letters from McCain, then chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, as "highly unusual."

And there's the little matter of his campaign co-chair and close political ally, Rick Renzi, being indicted today. It never stops; and it never will... although the whole bunch of them need to face the music: