Because, Chris, he had the chance, and he wasn't able to do so.

As I wrote in another thread, I think there's something plainly unethical about what took place here, irrespective of whether or not Iseman and McCain crossed the line into physical intimacy, or whether he ever changed his position on an issue or a bill to benefit one of her clients.

One lesson of the Abramoff scandal, which gave us the best look at Washington access peddling we've ever had, is that real clout is often less important to lobbyists than the perception of real clout. So long as they're seen as having special access, it doesn't always matter how effective they are at delivering favors.

That's the one undisputed aspect of this scandal. Whatever the reality of the relationship, Vicki Iseman was clearly going around Washington, telling people she had special access to the Chairman of the Commerce Committee. To quote John Weaver: "This was a woman who was saying that she had special influence with John's committee staff and with him....When you hear back from several people that this person is saying they can get anything done, then that is alarming."

It's also clear she raked in huge sums of money in lobbying fees as a result of peddling that access. And, his denials aside, it's pretty clear that McCain knew that's what she was doing. It was one subject of the confrontations with his staff, which he's denied. And far from stopping her, he continued to be seen with her in public and in private. He knew she was telling her clients that she could deliver access, and for whatever reason, chose not to dispute that or to distance himself from her. Bill Keller put it this way: "We don't know if there was a quid or a quo in this case. What we do know is that people very close to him, who watched him day after day, were worried enough by his behavior that they felt that he was endangering his career."

I think that's a telling point. Those closest to McCain were aware that Iseman was exploiting her relationship, real or perceived, to an unusual extent. That people were paying her tens of thousands of dollars in fees, because she was telling them that she had McCain in her pocket. It got bad enough that Weaver went around his boss and warned her off.

And that's why I want an explanation. That's why it's not enough for McCain to stand up at a press conference, and announce that he never changed his vote to help Iseman. Real or imagined, the relationship with McCain made Iseman's career, and that in itself is deeply unethical.

I just replied at length, only to have the comment swallowed by the blog monster haunting TPM Cafe.

So I'll repost a shorter version. I wanted McCain to put it to rest, but he had the chance, and he only succeeded in raising more questions

I left a comment on another thread to the effect that the real scandal here is the way in which Vicki Iseman traded on her perceived relationship with McCain. One lesson of the Abramoff scandal, which gave us the best look at Washington access peddling we've ever had, is that real clout is often less important to lobbyists than the perception of real clout. So long as they're seen as having special access, it doesn't always matter how effective they are at delivering favors.

That's the one undisputed aspect of this scandal. Whatever the reality of the relationship, Vicki Iseman was clearly going around Washington, telling people she had special access to the Chairman of the Commerce Committee. It's also clear she raked in huge sums of money in lobbying fees as a result of peddling that access. And, his denials aside, it's pretty clear that McCain knew that's what she was doing - and far from stopping her, continued to be seen with her in public and in private.

So there's more to this than McCain's private life, and he can't wriggle out of answering questions by asserting that he never did her clients any favors, even in the unlikely even that were true. His real problem is the biggest favor he did her - allowing her to turn their relationship into cash, in a manner that was unusual enough to raise eyebrows in a city known for influence peddling. I want to know why that happened, and why McCain failed to put a stop to it.

Thank you, someone else gets it. The NYT manufactured the Whitewater story, the wmd story, the Wen Ho Lee story, they crucified Clinton and Gore in their skewed reporting - I don't know why anyone trusts their reporting anymore.

Thank you, Genghis. I suspect that we're going to see a steady trickle of these stories over the next week. Each time, the McCain campaign is going to be forced to hedge and concede - because there isn't any doubt that McCain's denials were overly broad, that he was shooting from the hip (as he is wont to do), and that the result was some self-inflicted wounds.

We're going to see a thorough reexamination of his dealings with Paxson. I suspect many journalists are already hard at work, looking for sources who can place Iseman and McCain together in 1999, who recall them being more than casual acquaintances. And others will be following up on the John Weaver angle - looking to get the Times' sources, or others, to confirm the warnings given to McCain back in 1999.

McCain had the chance to innoculate himself against this - all he had to do was be vague in his denials, or concede that some but not all of the allegations. But the man tends to see the world in black and white. That gives him the courage of his convictions, but courage isn't going to carry him through this one. Let me quote David Brooks, this morning, no foe of McCain:
"At his press conference Thursday, McCain went all-in. He didn’t just say he didn’t remember a meeting about Iseman. He said there was no meeting. If it turns out that there is evidence of an affair and a meeting, then his presidential hopes will be over. If no evidence surfaces, his campaign will go on and it will be clear that there were members of his old inner circle consumed by viciousness and mendaciousness."

That's about right, except that Brooks omits the most likely possibility. We may never have clear evidence, one way or the other, of what happened between Iseman and McCain. So there may not be a single, sudden blow driving McCain from the race. Instead, bit by bit, more details will emerge. Each of McCain's overly-broad denials will slowly be picked apart. And it will consume the long summer months, and leave his campaign seriously crippled.

Genghis,

I'm going to Occam's razor for the explanation. He responded with overly aggressive denials to try to shut down the story, and he's anxious to shut down the story because there's something in it. His press conference sounded to me like "There's nothing to see here, move along." I believe that if there were really nothing to see, the most obvious way to shut down the story would be to provide a clear and full explanation of exactly what happened.

I'm gonna go with you on this one. To invoke some psychology:

Lying is something the mind does for defensive purposes. When there's nothing to lie about - e.g., there is no story - it never occurs to the mind to defend itself, because it recognizes that there's simply an error in facts. The mind then sets out to correct that error - in this case, providing a simple explanation for the relationship between Iseman and McCain.

So I'd be more inclined to think he's hiding something than that there really is nothing to that story.

Now, this reasoning flies out the window for anyone even remotely accustomed to lying out of habit. Who knows if McCain qualifies.

Crashed his jet in Corpus Christi Bay and thereafter, tried to take out the USS Forrestal?

If John McCain didn't have bad luck . . . well, you know the rest.