John McCain lobbyist controversy, February 2008
Encyclopedia
On February 21, 2008, in the midst of John McCain
's campaign
in the 2008 Republican presidential primaries
, both The New York Times
and the Washington Post published articles detailing rumors of an improper relationship between John McCain
and lobbyist Vicki Iseman
.
According to the New York Times story, McCain, who was a member of the Senate Commerce Committee during the period when Iseman was lobbying the committee, developed a close personal relationship with Iseman. The New York Times came under intense criticism for the article because of its use of anonymous sources and its timing.
In December 2008, Iseman filed a US$27 million defamation lawsuit against The New York Times, alleging that the paper falsely communicated an illicit romantic relationship between her and McCain. The Times said they "fully stood behind the article" and the story was "true and accurate".
The lawsuit was settled in February 2009 with no money changing hands between the parties. However, as a condition of the settlement the New York Times printed an unusual "Note to Readers" stating that the Times had not intended to allege any affair.
encouraging it to uphold marketing agreements allowing a television company to control two stations in the same city, a position which Iseman had been advocating on behalf of her client Glencairn Ltd. (now Cunningham Broadcasting
). McCain also introduced a bill to create tax incentives for minority ownership of stations, which several businesses Iseman represented were seeking.
In February 1999, McCain and Iseman attended a small fund-raising dinner with several clients at a Miami- area home of a cruise - line executive, then flew back to Washington along with a campaign aide on the corporate jet of Paxson Communications (now ION Media Networks
), one of her clients. Later in 1999, Iseman requested McCain to write to the FCC urging it to reach a speedy decision in a case involving Paxson Communications. Iseman, according to an email sent to the Times, provided McCain's staff with the information to write the letter. McCain's two letters to the FCC resulted in William Kennard
, the FCC chairman, issuing a rare public rebuke to McCain for his interference in FCC deliberations.
McCain also frequently denied requests from Iseman and the companies she represented, including attempts in 2006 to break up cable packages, something opposed by companies she represented. His proposals for satellite distribution of local television stations also failed to match the desires of Iseman's clients.
Iseman said she never received special treatment from McCain's office, and McCain said he never demonstrated favoritism to Iseman or her clients. During a phone call to Bill Keller
, executive editor of the New York Times, he said, "I have never betrayed the public trust by doing anything like that."
Iseman's clients contributed tens of thousands of dollars to McCain's campaigns.
According to the Times narrative, staff aides also worried that McCain's relationship with Iseman would receive negative media attention due to the letters McCain wrote to government regulators on her behalf, especially since McCain's campaign stressed his probity and included proposals for more stringent regulation of lobbying in the United States
. The Times story never explicitly alleged that an affair took place and Daniel Schnur
, McCain's 2000 communication director with no current connection to the campaign, called the Times account "highly implausible".
to tell Iseman not to see McCain anymore. Weaver, who arranged the meeting after a discussion among campaign leaders, said Iseman and he discussed "her conduct and what she allegedly had told people, which made its way back to us." Weaver heard that she was saying "she had strong ties to the Commerce Committee and his staff" and told her this was wrong and for it to stop. No discussion of a romantic involvement occurred because, according to Weaver, "there was no reason to". Iseman confirmed she met with Weaver, but disputed his account of the conversation.
Supposedly, an unnamed campaign adviser was instructed to keep Iseman away from McCain at public events, and plans were made to limit her access to his offices. It was reported that campaign associates confronted McCain directly about the risks he was taking with campaign and career. McCain allegedly admitted he was behaving inappropriately and promised to distance himself from Iseman. Concerns about the relationship eventually receded as the campaign continued.
Robert S. Bennett
, whom McCain had hired to represent him in this matter, defended McCain's character. Bennett, a registered Democrat, was the special investigator during the Keating Five
scandal that The Times revisited in the article. Bennett, who was coincidentally on Fox News' Hannity and Colmes program to promote his autobiography shortly after the paper published the story on their website, said that he fully investigated McCain back then and suggested to the Senate Ethics Committee to not pursue charges against McCain.
McCain spoke in a press conference the following day saying, "I'm very disappointed in the article. It's not true." He stated he never showed favoritism for her clients: "At no time have I ever done anything that would betray the public trust." He went on to characterize Iseman as a friend but no closer than other lobbyists. Both he and his wife strenuously denied any impropriety. He said he wasn't aware of the meeting Weaver had with Iseman nor of any concerns among his staff about his association.
George Stephanopolous, an ABC News
correspondent, said that — while damaging — as long as the sources remain anonymous this story will not throw the campaign off course. He quoted McCain aides that they will go after The New York Times "with extreme aggression — if the newspaper was going to act like a partisan they were going to treat them as a partisan." On the same day, fellow Senator Joe Lieberman
, who endorsed McCain for the presidency, said, "The story I think is outrageously unfair to him. There's no 'there' there."
U.S. News & World Report
publisher Mort Zuckerman said, “I don’t think that there is enough acknowledged sourcing for this story." Commentator Bill O'Reilly
raised the question about why the paper had endorsed McCain on January 25, 2008 for the Republican nomination if they had information that alleged an inappropriate relationship.
Academics and legal journals offered both support and criticism of the story. The editor of the American Journalism Review
said that, while the article wasn't entirely convincing, it did put to question McCain's reputation as a reformer. The editor of the Columbia Journalism Review
said the circumstances outlined in the story were sufficient to justify its publication. However, a dean
at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism disagreed, saying, "[If] you haven't covered all your bases or been transparent about where you got the information . . . then the criticism takes over and the story loses its significance." Kathleen Hall Jamieson
, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center faulted the paper for focusing on the purported affair.
Several conservative voices, who had recently criticized McCain, came to his defense. Brent Bozell of the watchdog
Media Research Center
(widely viewed as conservative) speculated that the story was done hastily because it feared the embarrassment of an imminent New Republic
article reporting on internal dissension about the story. Talk show host Rush Limbaugh
said, "This is what you get when you walk across the aisle and try to make these people your friends. I'm not surprised in the least that the NYT would try to take out John McCain." Jay Ambrose, an opinion columnist for the Boston Herald
, summarized their sentiment by writing, "One of the first rules of decent, principles-abiding journalism is that you don’t print rumors. That is nevertheless what The New York Times [NYT] just did in a smear job on John McCain...." San Francisco Chronicle
columnist Debra Saunders
wrote, "The paper set out to shine a spotlight on McCain's ethics, but it ended up turning a harsh light on its own ethical lapses."
Some liberal
commentators and critics of the Republican Party
have also questioned the purpose of the story. Jonathan Alter
of Newsweek
said the article lacked physical evidence, noting, "[L]et‘s face it, people are more interested in sex than they are in telecommunications lobbying activity." John Dean
argued that, if false, the article is both unfair and damaging, suggesting that legal recourse was possible. Journalist Hanna Rosin
, writing in Slate
, said the Times rushed the story to publication and left key questions unanswered, writing "Either write the cheating story or don't. As it is, it just looks like a lame story where they quote a bunch of anonymous old campaign sources but don't have any actual evidence of the affair themselves. And they make it much easier for McCain to just stomp on the story." Also writing for Slate, Michael Kinsley
criticized the Times for "semantic acrobatics" in "defending itself with a preposterous assertion that it wasn't trying to imply what it obviously was trying to imply".
In defense of the article, reporters for Politico
wondered that if the story was about McCain's possible 2008 presidential opponent, Senator Barack Obama
, whether conservatives may have been more curious about the details of the story which they felt had substance, a sentiment echoed by The New Republic
. Times editor Bill Keller
defended the story, saying the facts were well vetted and the timing was a result of waiting until the story was ready. Other Times editors defended the use of anonymous sources, saying they knew their identities and that they provided thorough and consistent stories. However, Clark Hoyt
, the ombudsman
for The New York Times, criticized the article for its lack of details and independent proof.
Former staffer to President Bill Clinton
and current Hillary Clinton supporter Lanny Davis
said the article "had no merit". Stating that he did not support McCain's bid for the White House, Davis, who had himself lobbied for the same cause Iseman lobbied McCain for, said that McCain only wrote a letter to the FCC to ask them to "act soon" and refused to write a letter that supported the sale of the television station the article talked about.
In February, 2009, the lawsuit was settled with no money changing hands between the parties. From the Times coverage of the settlement: "On Thursday, the two sides released a joint statement saying: 'To resolve the lawsuit, Ms. Iseman has accepted The Times’s explanation, which will appear in a Note to Readers to be published in the newspaper on Feb. 20, that the article did not state, and The Times did not intend to conclude, that Ms. Iseman had engaged in a romantic affair with Senator McCain or an unethical relationship on behalf of her clients in breach of the public trust.' That statement was published on The Times’s Web site, as was a statement from Ms. Iseman’s lawyers. They wrote, in part: 'Had this case proceeded to trial, the judicial determination of whether she is entitled to the protections afforded a private citizen
would have been the subject of a ferocious, pivotal battle, with Ms. Iseman insisting on her status as a private person and The New York Times asserting that she had entered the public arena
, and was therefore fair game.'" (The public/private Wikipedia links provided in the quote are for information, not legal, purposes.) Ms. Iseman's lawyers for the published the statement were Rodney A. Smolla
is an attorney, and Dean of the Washington and Lee University School of Law
. W. Coleman Allen, Jr. is a trial lawyer with Allen, Allen, Allen & Allen
, based in Richmond, Virginia
.
Iseman spoke out personally against the New York Times story for the first time during a March 2, 2009, interview on The Early Show
, where she vehemently denied having an affair with McCain, and said of the story, "Any assertions that there was anything inappropriate, ethically or professionally or personally are just not true." Iseman criticized the way the story was handled, and felt the newspaper became so invested in proving it was true that it became "out of control." She also said the entire story appeared to be based on a single source, who she claimed was John Weaver, a McCain political consultant she believed was offended when Iseman criticized a speech Weaver may have written. She said of Weaver's influence on the story, "[it] all went back to one singular person, a political operative who had left the senator's campaign under acrimonious circumstances. [...] All roads lead back to him." Weaver, who was quoted in the original Times story saying he met with Iseman after concerns were raised about her presence in the campaign, previously said he did not speak to the paper without permission from the McCain campaign.
John McCain
John Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....
's campaign
John McCain presidential campaign, 2008
John McCain, the senior United States Senator from Arizona, launched his second candidacy for the presidency of the United States in an unsuccessful bid to win the 2008 presidential election. His candidacy, in the works for a number of years, was informally announced on February 28, 2007 during a...
in the 2008 Republican presidential primaries
Republican Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2008
The 2008 Republican presidential primaries were the selection process by which voters of the Republican Party chose its nominee for President of the United States in the 2008 U.S. presidential election...
, both The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
and the Washington Post published articles detailing rumors of an improper relationship between John McCain
John McCain
John Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....
and lobbyist Vicki Iseman
Vicki Iseman
Vicki L. Iseman is a Washington, D.C.-based lobbyist working for the firm Alcalde & Fay.She gained national media attention in February 2008, due to her involvement in the John McCain lobbyist controversy.-Personal:...
.
According to the New York Times story, McCain, who was a member of the Senate Commerce Committee during the period when Iseman was lobbying the committee, developed a close personal relationship with Iseman. The New York Times came under intense criticism for the article because of its use of anonymous sources and its timing.
In December 2008, Iseman filed a US$27 million defamation lawsuit against The New York Times, alleging that the paper falsely communicated an illicit romantic relationship between her and McCain. The Times said they "fully stood behind the article" and the story was "true and accurate".
The lawsuit was settled in February 2009 with no money changing hands between the parties. However, as a condition of the settlement the New York Times printed an unusual "Note to Readers" stating that the Times had not intended to allege any affair.
McCain and the FCC
McCain wrote letters in 1998 and 1999 to the Federal Communications CommissionFederal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
encouraging it to uphold marketing agreements allowing a television company to control two stations in the same city, a position which Iseman had been advocating on behalf of her client Glencairn Ltd. (now Cunningham Broadcasting
Cunningham Broadcasting
Cunningham Broadcasting Corporation is an owner of television stations in the United States. The company currently owns six stations—four affiliated with Fox Broadcasting Company , one affiliated with MyNetworkTV and one affiliated with The CW Television Network.Cunningham has very close ties to...
). McCain also introduced a bill to create tax incentives for minority ownership of stations, which several businesses Iseman represented were seeking.
In February 1999, McCain and Iseman attended a small fund-raising dinner with several clients at a Miami- area home of a cruise - line executive, then flew back to Washington along with a campaign aide on the corporate jet of Paxson Communications (now ION Media Networks
ION Media Networks
ION Media Networks is an American television broadcasting company that owns and operates over 60 television stations in most major American markets. It is now a privately owned company.-History:...
), one of her clients. Later in 1999, Iseman requested McCain to write to the FCC urging it to reach a speedy decision in a case involving Paxson Communications. Iseman, according to an email sent to the Times, provided McCain's staff with the information to write the letter. McCain's two letters to the FCC resulted in William Kennard
William Kennard
William E. Kennard is the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union. He was nominated by Barack Obama in August 2009 and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in November 2009. He was also chairman of the United States Federal Communications Commission from 1997 to 2001, appointed by Bill Clinton in November...
, the FCC chairman, issuing a rare public rebuke to McCain for his interference in FCC deliberations.
McCain also frequently denied requests from Iseman and the companies she represented, including attempts in 2006 to break up cable packages, something opposed by companies she represented. His proposals for satellite distribution of local television stations also failed to match the desires of Iseman's clients.
Iseman said she never received special treatment from McCain's office, and McCain said he never demonstrated favoritism to Iseman or her clients. During a phone call to Bill Keller
Bill Keller
Bill Keller is a writer for the The New York Times, of which Keller was the executive editor from July 2003 until September 2011. On June 2, 2011, Keller announced that he would step down from the position to become a full-time writer...
, executive editor of the New York Times, he said, "I have never betrayed the public trust by doing anything like that."
Iseman's clients contributed tens of thousands of dollars to McCain's campaigns.
Alleged concerns about alleged romantic relationship with McCain
According to the Times story, Iseman began visiting McCain's offices and campaign events so frequently in 2000 that his aides were "convinced the relationship had become romantic". One staff member supposedly asked, "Why is she always around?"According to the Times narrative, staff aides also worried that McCain's relationship with Iseman would receive negative media attention due to the letters McCain wrote to government regulators on her behalf, especially since McCain's campaign stressed his probity and included proposals for more stringent regulation of lobbying in the United States
Lobbying in the United States
Lobbying in the United States targets the United States Senate, the United States House of Representatives, and state legislatures. Lobbyists may also represent their clients' or organizations' interests in dealings with federal, state, or local executive branch agencies or the courts. Lobby...
. The Times story never explicitly alleged that an affair took place and Daniel Schnur
Daniel Schnur
Daniel Schnur is the Director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California. He has served as Chairman of the California Fair Political Practices Commission, and is a visiting instructor at the University of California, Berkeley...
, McCain's 2000 communication director with no current connection to the campaign, called the Times account "highly implausible".
McCain's aides allegedly intervene to "save McCain from himself"
The New York Times and Washington Post reported that unnamed staff members began a campaign to "save McCain from himself" by restricting Iseman's access to McCain during the course of the 2000 presidential primary. According to the Washington Post story published the same day as the New York Times story, Weaver met with Iseman at Union Station (Washington, D.C.)Union Station (Washington, D.C.)
Washington Union Station is a train station and leisure destination visited by 32 million people each year in the center of Washington, D.C. The train station is served by Amtrak, MARC and Virginia Railway Express commuter rail services as well as by Washington Metro subway trains and local buses...
to tell Iseman not to see McCain anymore. Weaver, who arranged the meeting after a discussion among campaign leaders, said Iseman and he discussed "her conduct and what she allegedly had told people, which made its way back to us." Weaver heard that she was saying "she had strong ties to the Commerce Committee and his staff" and told her this was wrong and for it to stop. No discussion of a romantic involvement occurred because, according to Weaver, "there was no reason to". Iseman confirmed she met with Weaver, but disputed his account of the conversation.
Supposedly, an unnamed campaign adviser was instructed to keep Iseman away from McCain at public events, and plans were made to limit her access to his offices. It was reported that campaign associates confronted McCain directly about the risks he was taking with campaign and career. McCain allegedly admitted he was behaving inappropriately and promised to distance himself from Iseman. Concerns about the relationship eventually receded as the campaign continued.
Response from McCain's campaign
On February 20, the night before the article appeared in the printed newspaper, but just after the story was available online, the McCain presidential campaign issued the following statement: "It is a shame that The New York Times has lowered its standards to engage in a hit-and-run smear campaign. John McCain has a 24-year record of serving our country with honor and integrity. He has never violated the public trust, never done favors for special interests or lobbyists, and he will not allow a smear campaign to distract from the issues at stake in this election. Americans are sick and tired of this kind of gutter politics, and there is nothing in this story to suggest that John McCain has ever violated the principles that have guided his career.” A McCain campaign adviser added that the report “reads like a tabloid gossip sheet”.Robert S. Bennett
Robert S. Bennett
Robert S. Bennett is an American attorney best known for representing President Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal. Bennett is also famous for representing Judith Miller in the Valerie Plame CIA leak grand jury investigation case, Caspar Weinberger, the U.S...
, whom McCain had hired to represent him in this matter, defended McCain's character. Bennett, a registered Democrat, was the special investigator during the Keating Five
Keating Five
The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The five senators – Alan Cranston , Dennis DeConcini, John Glenn , John McCain , and Donald W. Riegle,...
scandal that The Times revisited in the article. Bennett, who was coincidentally on Fox News' Hannity and Colmes program to promote his autobiography shortly after the paper published the story on their website, said that he fully investigated McCain back then and suggested to the Senate Ethics Committee to not pursue charges against McCain.
"And if there is one thing I am absolutely confident of, it is John McCain is an honest and honest man. I recommended to the Senate Ethics Committee that he be cut out of the case, that there was no evidence against him, and I think for the New York Times to dig this up just shows that Senator McCain's public statement about this is correct. It's a smear job. I'm sorry. "
McCain spoke in a press conference the following day saying, "I'm very disappointed in the article. It's not true." He stated he never showed favoritism for her clients: "At no time have I ever done anything that would betray the public trust." He went on to characterize Iseman as a friend but no closer than other lobbyists. Both he and his wife strenuously denied any impropriety. He said he wasn't aware of the meeting Weaver had with Iseman nor of any concerns among his staff about his association.
Ethics of publication questioned
The Times decision to publish the article while relying almost entirely on anonymous sources has raised ethical questions relating to the story's veracity and importance.George Stephanopolous, an ABC News
ABC News
ABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
correspondent, said that — while damaging — as long as the sources remain anonymous this story will not throw the campaign off course. He quoted McCain aides that they will go after The New York Times "with extreme aggression — if the newspaper was going to act like a partisan they were going to treat them as a partisan." On the same day, fellow Senator Joe Lieberman
Joe Lieberman
Joseph Isadore "Joe" Lieberman is the senior United States Senator from Connecticut. A former member of the Democratic Party, he was the party's nominee for Vice President in the 2000 election. Currently an independent, he remains closely affiliated with the party.Born in Stamford, Connecticut,...
, who endorsed McCain for the presidency, said, "The story I think is outrageously unfair to him. There's no 'there' there."
U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
publisher Mort Zuckerman said, “I don’t think that there is enough acknowledged sourcing for this story." Commentator Bill O'Reilly
Bill O'Reilly (commentator)
William James "Bill" O'Reilly, Jr. is an American television host, author, syndicated columnist and political commentator. He is the host of the political commentary program The O'Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel, which is the most watched cable news television program on American television...
raised the question about why the paper had endorsed McCain on January 25, 2008 for the Republican nomination if they had information that alleged an inappropriate relationship.
Academics and legal journals offered both support and criticism of the story. The editor of the American Journalism Review
American Journalism Review
The American Journalism Review is a U.S. magazine covering topics in journalism. It is published six times a year by the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park. The AJR has been owned since the late 1980s by a foundation of the university...
said that, while the article wasn't entirely convincing, it did put to question McCain's reputation as a reformer. The editor of the Columbia Journalism Review
Columbia Journalism Review
The Columbia Journalism Review is an American magazine for professional journalists published bimonthly by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961....
said the circumstances outlined in the story were sufficient to justify its publication. However, a dean
Dean (education)
In academic administration, a dean is a person with significant authority over a specific academic unit, or over a specific area of concern, or both...
at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism disagreed, saying, "[If] you haven't covered all your bases or been transparent about where you got the information . . . then the criticism takes over and the story loses its significance." Kathleen Hall Jamieson
Kathleen Hall Jamieson
Kathleen Hall Jamieson is an American Professor of Communication and the director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania...
, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center faulted the paper for focusing on the purported affair.
Several conservative voices, who had recently criticized McCain, came to his defense. Brent Bozell of the watchdog
Watchdog journalism
Watchdog journalism aims to hold accountable public personalities and institutions, whose functions impact social and political life. The term "lapdog journalism", for journalism biased in favour of personalities and institutions, is sometimes used as a conceptual opposite to watchdog...
Media Research Center
Media Research Center
The Media Research Center is a content analysis organization based in Alexandria, Virginia, founded in 1987 by conservative activist L. Brent Bozell III...
(widely viewed as conservative) speculated that the story was done hastily because it feared the embarrassment of an imminent New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
article reporting on internal dissension about the story. Talk show host Rush Limbaugh
Rush Limbaugh
Rush Hudson Limbaugh III is an American radio talk show host, conservative political commentator, and an opinion leader in American conservatism. He hosts The Rush Limbaugh Show which is aired throughout the U.S. on Premiere Radio Networks and is the highest-rated talk-radio program in the United...
said, "This is what you get when you walk across the aisle and try to make these people your friends. I'm not surprised in the least that the NYT would try to take out John McCain." Jay Ambrose, an opinion columnist for the Boston Herald
Boston Herald
The Boston Herald is a daily newspaper that serves Boston, Massachusetts, United States, and its surrounding area. It was started in 1846 and is one of the oldest daily newspapers in the United States...
, summarized their sentiment by writing, "One of the first rules of decent, principles-abiding journalism is that you don’t print rumors. That is nevertheless what The New York Times [NYT] just did in a smear job on John McCain...." San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
columnist Debra Saunders
Debra Saunders
Debra J. Saunders is a conservative columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Syndicated by Creators Syndicate, her thrice weekly column is also carried by newspapers throughout the country and on townhall.com. Saunders also blogs for the Chronicle under the moniker Token Conservative...
wrote, "The paper set out to shine a spotlight on McCain's ethics, but it ended up turning a harsh light on its own ethical lapses."
Some liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
commentators and critics of the Republican Party
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
have also questioned the purpose of the story. Jonathan Alter
Jonathan Alter
Jonathan Alter is an American journalist and author who was a columnist and senior editor for Newsweek magazine from 1983 until 2011. He is currently a lead columnist for Bloomberg View, a new commentary website. He is also a contributing correspondent to NBC News, where since 1996 he has appeared...
of Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
said the article lacked physical evidence, noting, "[L]et‘s face it, people are more interested in sex than they are in telecommunications lobbying activity." John Dean
John Dean
John Wesley Dean III is an American lawyer who served as White House Counsel to United States President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. In this position, he became deeply involved in events leading up to the Watergate burglaries and the subsequent Watergate scandal cover-up...
argued that, if false, the article is both unfair and damaging, suggesting that legal recourse was possible. Journalist Hanna Rosin
Hanna Rosin
-Career:Hanna Rosin is a co-founder of DoubleX, a women's site connected to the online magazine Slate. She is also a writer for The Atlantic. She has written for the Washington Post, The New Yorker, GQ and New York after beginning her career as a staff writer for The New Republic. Rosin has also...
, writing in Slate
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
, said the Times rushed the story to publication and left key questions unanswered, writing "Either write the cheating story or don't. As it is, it just looks like a lame story where they quote a bunch of anonymous old campaign sources but don't have any actual evidence of the affair themselves. And they make it much easier for McCain to just stomp on the story." Also writing for Slate, Michael Kinsley
Michael Kinsley
Michael Kinsley is an American political journalist, commentator, television host, and pundit. Primarily active in print media as both a writer and editor, he also became known to television audiences as a co-host on Crossfire...
criticized the Times for "semantic acrobatics" in "defending itself with a preposterous assertion that it wasn't trying to imply what it obviously was trying to imply".
In defense of the article, reporters for Politico
Politico (newspaper)
The Politico is an American political journalism organization based in Arlington, Virginia, that distributes its content via television, the Internet, newspaper, and radio. Its coverage of Washington, D.C., includes the U.S. Congress, lobbying, media and the Presidency...
wondered that if the story was about McCain's possible 2008 presidential opponent, Senator Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
, whether conservatives may have been more curious about the details of the story which they felt had substance, a sentiment echoed by The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
. Times editor Bill Keller
Bill Keller
Bill Keller is a writer for the The New York Times, of which Keller was the executive editor from July 2003 until September 2011. On June 2, 2011, Keller announced that he would step down from the position to become a full-time writer...
defended the story, saying the facts were well vetted and the timing was a result of waiting until the story was ready. Other Times editors defended the use of anonymous sources, saying they knew their identities and that they provided thorough and consistent stories. However, Clark Hoyt
Clark Hoyt
- Personal life and Professional career :Clark Hoyt is an American journalist who was the public editor of the New York Times, serving as the "readers' representative." He was the newspaper's third public editor, or ombudsman, after Daniel Okrent and Byron Calame...
, the ombudsman
Ombudsman
An ombudsman is a person who acts as a trusted intermediary between an organization and some internal or external constituency while representing not only but mostly the broad scope of constituent interests...
for The New York Times, criticized the article for its lack of details and independent proof.
Follow-up article
On February 23, The New York Times followed up their original article with an article on McCain's efforts to help a client of Iseman's before the FCC. According to the article, "In late 1998, Senator John McCain sent an unusually blunt letter to the head of the Federal Communications Commission, warning that he would try to overhaul the agency if it closed a broadcast ownership loophole."Former staffer to President Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
and current Hillary Clinton supporter Lanny Davis
Lanny Davis
Lanny J. Davis is an American lawyer and lobbyist. From 1996 to 1998, he served as a special counsel to President Bill Clinton.-Background:...
said the article "had no merit". Stating that he did not support McCain's bid for the White House, Davis, who had himself lobbied for the same cause Iseman lobbied McCain for, said that McCain only wrote a letter to the FCC to ask them to "act soon" and refused to write a letter that supported the sale of the television station the article talked about.
Defamation lawsuit and settlement
In December 2008, Iseman filed a US$27 million defamation lawsuit against The New York Times, alleging that the paper falsely communicated an illicit romantic relationship between her and McCain. The Times said they "fully stood behind the article" and the story was "true and accurate".In February, 2009, the lawsuit was settled with no money changing hands between the parties. From the Times coverage of the settlement: "On Thursday, the two sides released a joint statement saying: 'To resolve the lawsuit, Ms. Iseman has accepted The Times’s explanation, which will appear in a Note to Readers to be published in the newspaper on Feb. 20, that the article did not state, and The Times did not intend to conclude, that Ms. Iseman had engaged in a romantic affair with Senator McCain or an unethical relationship on behalf of her clients in breach of the public trust.' That statement was published on The Times’s Web site, as was a statement from Ms. Iseman’s lawyers. They wrote, in part: 'Had this case proceeded to trial, the judicial determination of whether she is entitled to the protections afforded a private citizen
Privacy
Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively...
would have been the subject of a ferocious, pivotal battle, with Ms. Iseman insisting on her status as a private person and The New York Times asserting that she had entered the public arena
Public figure
Public figure is a legal term applied in the context of defamation actions as well as invasion of privacy. A public figure cannot base a lawsuit on incorrect harmful statements unless there is proof that the writer or publisher acted with actual malice...
, and was therefore fair game.'" (The public/private Wikipedia links provided in the quote are for information, not legal, purposes.) Ms. Iseman's lawyers for the published the statement were Rodney A. Smolla
Rodney A. Smolla
Rodney A. Smolla, is an award-winning author and first amendment scholar. He is the 11th president of Furman University.Smolla went to Yale University as an undergraduate and to Duke University Law School, where he finished first in his class...
is an attorney, and Dean of the Washington and Lee University School of Law
Washington and Lee University School of Law
The Washington and Lee University School of Law is a private American Bar Association-accredited law school located in Lexington in the Shenandoah Valley region of Virginia. Facilities are currently on the campus of Washington and Lee University in Sydney Lewis Hall...
. W. Coleman Allen, Jr. is a trial lawyer with Allen, Allen, Allen & Allen
Allen, Allen, Allen & Allen
Allen, Allen, Allen & Allen is a United States law firm based in Richmond, Virginia. Founded in 1910 in Lunenburg County, Virginia the firm now has 21 attorneys and more than 125 employees in 8 offices in Virginia. They have offices in Richmond, Chesterfield, Mechanicsville, Petersburg,...
, based in Richmond, Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
.
Iseman spoke out personally against the New York Times story for the first time during a March 2, 2009, interview on The Early Show
The Early Show
The Early Show is an American television morning news talk show broadcast by CBS from New York City. The program airs live from 7 to 9 a.m. Eastern Time Monday through Friday; most affiliates in the Central, Mountain, and Pacific time zones air the show on tape-delay from 7 to 9 a.m. local time. ...
, where she vehemently denied having an affair with McCain, and said of the story, "Any assertions that there was anything inappropriate, ethically or professionally or personally are just not true." Iseman criticized the way the story was handled, and felt the newspaper became so invested in proving it was true that it became "out of control." She also said the entire story appeared to be based on a single source, who she claimed was John Weaver, a McCain political consultant she believed was offended when Iseman criticized a speech Weaver may have written. She said of Weaver's influence on the story, "[it] all went back to one singular person, a political operative who had left the senator's campaign under acrimonious circumstances. [...] All roads lead back to him." Weaver, who was quoted in the original Times story saying he met with Iseman after concerns were raised about her presence in the campaign, previously said he did not speak to the paper without permission from the McCain campaign.