My Lobby, Myself: How John McCain's hypocrisy is laundered as reform

[seafan]

My Lobby, Myself: How John McCain's hypocrisy is laundered as reform

By Ken Silverstein
Harper's

May, 2008


(Click on top graphic to read the 6 paragraphs on the sides of the Annotation. Could not copy/paste text.)


The readable text is here.



Very important information.



Here is some discussion of Silverstein's piece by Bob Bauer at More Soft Money Hard Law blog:

April 18, 2008

Ken Silverstein has looked into how McCain raises and spends his own money, a refreshing change from the standard practice of hearing McCain out on the fundraising practice of others. "My Lobby, Myself: How John McCain’s Hypocrisy Is Laundered as Reform," Harper’s (May 2008) at 48-49. His particular interest is the Reform Institute, a nonprofit that has hosted and handsomely paid McCain’s inner circle; contributed millions to the subsidization of the Senator’s political projects; and replenished its funding with assistance from Telecommunications interests maintaining an active stake in McCain’s service on the Commerce Committee.

Not all of this is new; nowhere is it so concisely and damningly brought together to make the charge that, in Silverstein’s words, "John McCain’s hypocrisy is laundered as reform." But a standard critique or attack of McCain’s "hypocrisy " is too easy. A hypocritical McCain, by this understanding of hypocrisy, is merely a politician who professes to care about something but occasionally deviates from this commitment in his own conduct. McCain’s history with political money suggests that the problem is deeper, and the political and policy implications more profound, than that .

The press has always excused evidence of McCain’s "hypocrisy" because it is seen in forgiving political terms, as an inescapable compromise by a practical politician. McCain does what he has to do, it is thought, but he is a victim of the system: he plays by its sordid rules but he will use his success to reform those rules. Why, then, be so hard on him? It is hypocrisy, yes, but run-of-the-mill hypocrisy by a craftsman practicing the art of the possible.

The answer is that McCain’s willingness to entangle himself in conflicts of interest with his private fundraising activity raises the question of whether McCain simply uses the cause of campaign finance reform, putting it aside as needed, and will never be a stalwart agent of its advancement. It is not that he breaks faith with reform as he must; it is more that there is not much of this faith in the first place.

If McCain can engage in schemes like the Reform Institute—sticking with it even after a mild scolding delivered by the New York Times—then it is entirely possible that he is not just cutting corners in the short term so that, in the longer run, he can turn to a grand and luminous project of reform. McCain may not care nearly as much about campaign finance, or in the same way, as his admirers in the press do. For him, it’s a ploy—rhetorically satisfying and politically profitable—and he will make use of reform, or abandon it, as political self-interest requires.

The evidence for this is fairly plentiful. McCain likes to make of his campaign finance commitments a tale of an odyssey beginning almost 20 years ago from personal failing to redemption, from Charles Keating to McCain-Feingold. In between and since, the plot has lost a good bit of its shape, and the story line a good bit of its credibility.

In 2003 and 2004, we now know, the McCain ostensibly chastened by the Keating experience, repeated it for the benefit of telecommunications interests, taking their money for his Institute just as he was prodding the FCC for regulatory dispensations. He has acted out again his supposedly ancient sin—a sin which he has credited with transforming his approach to official ethics.

By the time he set out on his 2008 Presidential campaign, McCain also gave up his support for public financing reform, refusing to join others in sponsoring the leading measure. He is now facing legal complications over his manipulation of the primary public funding system. And the Reform Institute has operated all along right at the intersection of policy and special interest funding. McCain, only stepping down from an "advisory " role, has controlled it through his most senior aides, and it is run for his benefit. Silverstein writes that "the nonprofit has continued to advance an agenda indistinguishable from his own."

Why then does the press that covers McCain assume that he is a true believer? He has been useful to the pursuit of campaign finance reform in years past: he played his part credibly, and the reform community and their allies are in his debt. Each side used the other. It was a very commercial relationship, with McCain rendering service for which he was, in political capital, richly rewarded.

So if McCain finds that the deal has outlived its usefulness, and that there are other bargains to be struck, the press will find him, on his "signature issue," gone for good. This is why, when Silverstein asks "Will a McCain presidency finally drive money out of politics and sharply limit the influence of special-interest groups?", he concludes that the answer is "rather emphatically, no."

This man is not qualified to be president.

When will the press get over its starry-eyed adoration of John McCain?

[ryanmuegge]

1. Never.