Wolf Howling: Paxson

Friday, February 29, 2008

Krauthammer on Lobbying, McCain & The Left's Demagoguery

Charles Krauthammer responds to the NYT hit piece on John McCain, providing a civics lesson and highlighting the demagoguery of the left in the process.

________________________________________________________

Charles Krauthammer takes a more benign view of lobbying than do most in this day and age, though he is completely correct that the "lobbying" is constitutionally protected speech that is often both reasonable and necessary. Krauthammer then notes, as I did here, that there was nothing untoward whatsoever in John McCain trying to get a recalcitrant FCC to do their job and make a decision on a matter effecting Paxson Communications. That, indeed, falls well within the ambit of what we expect our elected representatives to be doing. This from Krauthammer:

Everyone knows the First Amendment protects freedom of religion, speech, press and assembly. How many remember that, in addition, the First Amendment protects a fifth freedom -- to lobby?

Of course it doesn't use the word lobby. It calls it the right "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Lobbyists are people hired to do that for you, so that you can actually stay home with the kids and remain gainfully employed rather than spend your life in the corridors of Washington.

To hear the candidates in this presidential campaign, you'd think lobbying is just one notch below waterboarding, a black art practiced by the great malefactors of wealth to keep the middle class in a vise and loose upon the nation every manner of scourge: oil dependency, greenhouse gases, unpayable mortgages and those tiny entrees you get at French restaurants.

Lobbying is constitutionally protected, but that doesn't mean we have to like it all. Let's agree to frown upon bad lobbying, such as getting a tax break for a particular industry. Let's agree to welcome good lobbying -- the actual redress of a legitimate grievance -- such as protecting your home from being turned to dust to make way for some urban development project.

. . . What would be an example of petitioning the government for a redress of a legitimate grievance? Let's say you're a media company wishing to acquire a television station in Pittsburgh. Because of the huge federal regulatory structure, you require the approval of a government agency. In this case it's called the Federal Communications Commission.

Now, one of the roles of Congress is to make sure that said bureaucrats are interpreting and enforcing Congress's laws with fairness and dispatch. All members of Congress, no matter how populist, no matter how much they rail against "special interests," zealously protect this right of oversight. Therefore, one of the jobs of the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee is to ensure that the bureaucrats of the FCC are doing their job.

What would constitute not doing their job? A textbook example would be the FCC sitting two full years on a pending application to acquire a Pittsburgh TV station. There could hardly be a better case of a legitimate "petition for a redress" than that of the aforementioned private entity asking the chairman of the appropriate oversight committee to ask the tardy bureaucrats for a ruling. So the chairman does that, writing to the FCC demanding a ruling -- any ruling -- while explicitly stating that he is asking for no particular outcome.

This, of course, is precisely what John McCain did on behalf of Paxson Communications in writing two letters to the FCC in which he asked for a vote on the pending television-station acquisition. These two letters are the only remotely hard pieces of evidence in a 3,000-word front-page New York Times article casting doubt on John McCain's ethics.

Which is why what was intended to be an expose turned into a farce, compounded by the fact that the other breathless revelation turned out to be thrice-removed rumors of an alleged affair nine years ago.

It must be said of McCain that he has invited such astonishingly thin charges against him because he has made a career of ostentatiously questioning the motives and ethics of those who have resisted his campaign finance reform and other measures that he imagines will render Congress influence-free.

Ostentatious self-righteousness may be a sin, but it is not a scandal. Nor is it a crime or a form of corruption. The Times's story is a classic example of sloppy gotcha journalism. . . .

Read the entire article.

The problem with lobbying is that it has become associated with pandering to special interests at best and, at worst, a tool of corruption when combined with earmarks - as Duke Cunningham, William Jefferson and John Murtha exemplify. In that light, McCain stands firmly on the right side of this issue, being a champion against the corrupting practice of earmarks and an opponent of the corrupting influence of money in politics. Indeed, his much maligned McCain-Feingold bill was aimed at precisely the latter. Regardless, lobbying will always be an element of our Democratic system, and to pretend otherwise, as does Obama - who happens to embrace earmarks - is pure demagoguery.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Having watched their compatriots at the NYT publish an ethically challenged hit piece on John McCain, the Washinton Post decides they too want in on the action.

_____________________________________________________

The Washington Post follows up the NTY story yesterday, doing only a slightly more subtle hit piece. The Washington Post leads with the story "McCain Disputed On 1999 Meeting":

Broadcaster Lowell "Bud" Paxson yesterday contradicted statements from Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign that the senator did not meet with Paxson or his lobbyist before sending two controversial letters to the Federal Communications Commission on Paxson's behalf.

Paxson said he talked with McCain in his Washington office several weeks before the Arizona Republican wrote the letters in 1999 to the FCC urging a rapid decision on Paxson's quest to acquire a Pittsburgh television station.

Paxson also recalled that his lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, likely attended the meeting in McCain's office and that Iseman helped arrange the meeting. "Was Vicki there? Probably," Paxson said in an interview with The Washington Post yesterday. "The woman was a professional. She was good. She could get us meetings."

The recollection of the now-retired Paxson conflicted with the account provided by the McCain campaign about the two letters at the center of a controversy about the senator's ties to Iseman, a partner at the lobbying firm of Alcalde & Fay.

The McCain campaign said Thursday that the senator had not met with Paxson or Iseman on the matter. "No representative of Paxson or Alcalde and Fay personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC regarding this proceeding," the campaign said in a statement.

But Paxson said yesterday, "I remember going there to meet with him." He recalled that he told McCain: "You're head of the Commerce Committee. The FCC is not doing its job. I would love for you to write a letter."

McCain attorney Robert S. Bennett played down the contradiction between the campaign's written answer and Paxson's recollection.

. . . "We understood that he [McCain] did not speak directly with him [Paxson]. Now it appears he did speak to him. What is the difference?" Bennett said. "McCain has never denied that Paxson asked for assistance from his office. It doesn't seem relevant whether the request got to him through Paxson or the staff. His letters to the FCC concerning the matter urged the commission to make up its mind. He did not ask the FCC to approve or deny the application. It's not that big a deal."

Read the entire article. There is more smoke. But let me ask you. Is there anything wrong with asking for an elected official to intercede to force a regulatory agency to get off their ass and do their job? The FCC was required to make a decision. The FCC was close to a year late and a business deal was about to fall through because of it. How is anything that McCain did ethically challenged?

This argument smacks of a no-war-for-oil mindset. To do anything for a lobbyist is verbotten, even if what the lobbyist wants happens to be good for the country. Nonetheless, the Washington Post tells us that this was very bad form by McCain. They drive home the point that with quotations from Gloria Tristani:

Another commissioner, Gloria Tristani, who now practices law in Washington, said McCain's interference was offensive. She noted that, in the Paxson matter, the commission was serving as a quasi-judicial body.

"It was just not proper," Tristani said. "It is like going to a court and saying, 'Tell us before it is final how you voted.' "

McCain's request for a vote by a certain date also rankled Tristani. "It was highly contentious and could impinge on the process," she said. "It was very controversial."

What horse manure. Perhaps it would be nice if the Washington Post told us a bit more about Ms. Tristani. Her on-line bio begins with the words "a life-long Democrat." She was also ran for the Senate as a Democrat. Think that might have anything to do with evaluating her position?

This hitpiece isin't as bad as the New York Time's monstrosity, but it is a hit piece all the same. Let me explain this for those journalists who seem to have lost their moral and ethical compass.

If any of our elected leaders or Presidential candidates are violating a law, tell me. That would be a tremendous service. If John McCain or Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton is carrying on an adulterous affair and you have proof, I want to know it. I would prefer no more sex scandals in the oval office, straight, gay or lesbian. If John McCain, Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton is accepting campaign contributions from special interests and then acting inappropriately on behalf of that interest, ferreting that out is good journalism. And if McCain, Obama or Clinton are directing earmarks to campaign contributors, that is especially important. On the other hand, if you are going to write on any those topics without proof, using innuendo and speculation, or play gotcha' journalism on wholly ancillary facts, you have completely lost your moral and ethical compass.

Now, if McCain lied about the nature of the support he provided to Mr. Paxson, that would be an important story. If McCain had written to the FCC urging approval of Mr. Paxson's request, that would be legitimate front page news. But the bottom line is that McCain did not lie about that. To put this in perspective, of the 100 Senators in Congress, I doubt if you could find a one of them that has not written letters to regulatory agencies or other branches of government on behalf of people and businesses.

The fact that two people's memories of ancillary events a decade old differ on the margins is expected. To play this up as a "contradiction" to suggest McCain is being less than honest is pretty outrageous, actually. What this seems is an attempt by the Washington Post to do no more than keep the dust storm alive in the hopes some will turn to mud and stick to Senator McCain before he can start eating Barack Obama alive on such things as Obama's loyalty to lobbyists and earmarks.