1115.org

Anybody who follows politics understands about feet of clay, and may be willing to cut politicians some slack for garden variety clay-footing. But John “Lobbyists’ Worst Nightmare” McCain seems to be in a class by himself. His feet seem to be not just made of clay but marinaded in raw sewage for a good long time.

Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff reports on some more apparent wrongdoing by McCain, which involves totally selling out to the lobbyists whom McCain claims to abhor:

One of John McCain’s most celebrated achievements in recent years was his crusade to block a Pentagon contract with Boeing for a new fleet of midair refueling tankers. Incensed over what he denounced as a taxpayer “rip-off,” McCain launched a Senate probe that uncovered cozy relations between top Air Force officials and Boeing execs. A top Air Force officer and Boeing’s CFO ended up in prison. Most significantly, the Air Force was forced to cancel the contract—saving taxpayers more than $6 billion, McCain asserted.

The $35 billion contract was subsequently awarded to “Boeing’s chief rival, partners European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. (or EADS) and Northrop Grumman.” And guess who EADS’ point man seems to have been?

Critics, including some at the Pentagon, cite in particular two tough letters McCain wrote to Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England in 2006 and another to Robert Gates, just prior to his confirmation as Defense secretary. In the first letter, dated Sept. 8, 2006, McCain wrote of hearing from “third parties” that the Air Force was about to redo the tanker competition by factoring in European government subsidies to EADS—a condition that could have seriously hurt the EADS bid. McCain urged that the Pentagon drop the subsidy factor and posed a series of technical questions about the Air Force’s process. “He was trying to jam us and bully us to make sure there was competition by giving EADS an advantage,” said one senior Pentagon official, who asked for anonymity when discussing a politically sensitive matter. The assumption within the Pentagon, the official added, was that McCain’s letters were drafted by EADS lobbyists. “There was no one else that would have had that level of detail,” the official said.

Did McCain jam and bully the Pentagon into awarding the contract to EADS and Northrop Grumman? Did he do it by sending letters that were effectively ghost-written by lobbyists for EADS? The McCain campaign denies the allegation, of course, but “We did nothing wrong, so we can’t talk about it” doesn’t sound terribly convincing:

Chris Paul, who serves as McCain’s top aide on the issue, wrote in an e-mail to NEWSWEEK that “the letters … were absolutely not provided, or drafted, by EADS or Northrop Grumman or … submitted on their behalf. Those letters arose from, and reflect, Senator McCain’s longstanding interest in … full and open competition.” The campaign would not allow Paul to answer follow-up questions about whether McCain had input from EADS lobbyists on the letters or about the identity of the “third parties.”

And the icing on the cake is that “five of his campaign’s top advisers and fund-raisers—including Tom Loeffler, who resigned last month as his finance co-chairman, and Susan Nelson, his finance director—were registered lobbyists for EADS”.

Just coincidence, of course, right? McCain has so many lobbyists among his top advisers that you take any company whose fortunes McCain could have influenced, and you’re bound to find multiple former lobbyists for that company in McCain’s inner circle.

Interestingly, Loeffler and Nelson are adroitly distancing themselves from the perfectly innocent letters McCain sent that just happened to land the contract for EADS:

A Loeffler associate noted that he and Nelson were retained by EADS after the letters were drafted.

So there you have it. Just ugly rumors. There’s just smoke, but really no fire. And the fire breaks that Loeffler and Nelson are busy erecting? Just a coincidence, of course.