How about that Reform Institute? What was behind the NYT's decision to print the McCain article?

We might as well take a look at McCain's "Reform Institute" because the subject is bound to come up, now that the New York Times has decided to "vet" this allegedly honorable candidate.  We said it before, we'll say it again, it's incredibly naive to imagine that military service or years spent as a prisoner of war guarantee probity and honor.

Here's what columnist Joe Conason wrote about John McCain three weeks ago, at a time when he was just emerging as the sure-fire Republican frontrunner.  There has been an assiduous effort to whitewash John McCain following the Keating Five scandal which was marked not by McCain's being exonerated but by his being let off the hook.

... Just how much of a reformer is McCain? The myth as recounted by the maverick himself and his admiring scribes is that the searing experience of the Keating Five scandal purified his character. Never again would he allow himself to be turned away from the path of righteousness by lobbyists and donors, never again would he sell out the public interest to the high rollers, never again would he besmirch the honor of his office ... and so on.

But we know enough, Conason writes, that McCain hasn't exactly wound up "purified."  The beat goes on.  Not entirely unlike Bill Clinton, McCain seems to look for trouble, seems prone to sleaze.   Conason points to McCain's "Reform Institute."

Created after his failed presidential run in 2000, the Reform Institute is a hybrid between a domestic issues think tank and a tasty sugar teat for campaign staffers. Among its senior fellows is former Mexican Cabinet member Juan Hernandez, who also heads the McCain campaign's outreach to Hispanic voters. Other Reform Institute employees have included lobbyist and political consultant Rick Davis, long a member of the McCain inner circle and now his campaign manager.

The sweetest aspect of the Reform Institute -- aside from its commitment to research on immigration reform, campaign finance and other liberal concerns that the senator no longer finds so relevant -- is that its own financing is not subject to the regulations and disclosures of federal election law. In practice, that has meant not only that the McCain crowd could sop up subsidies from foundations run by liberal Democrats but that corporate donors with issues before the Commerce Committee could chip in a few bucks, too. Or a few thousand bucks, or even 50,000 bucks or more, like the executives of Cablevision (under the name CSC Holdings) and Echostar, communications firms with substantial issues at stake before McCain's committee.

Then there was that contribution from American International Group, whose executives had been quite concerned in 2000 about McCain's vow to stop AIG from profiting illicitly on insurance overcharges ripped off from the Boston "Big Dig" project. Sen. John Kerry got most of the blame for the demise of McCain's reform bill, which would have banned insurance giants like AIG from overcharging federal projects and reaping windfalls from investing that money. But it was actually McCain who killed his own bill -- and nobody seems to have checked back to discover that AIG later donated more than $50,000 to the Reform Institute. How much more? That might be a relevant question now, notably because Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, the McCain backer who ran AIG in those days, has since been forced to relinquish the company under threat of criminal prosecution.

Conason also notices a certain similarity with Bill Clinton's foundation, pointing out that the media have been giving a lot of attention to Clinton and very little to John McCain's parallel activities.

The national press corps may never direct such skepticism toward their pal McCain, but it takes true willpower to resist reporting on a soft-money operation called the Reform Institute.

That seems to be changing.  Apparently the New York Times wasn't exactly eager to publish the McCain revelations.  Politico has this:

As part of their pushback, McCain’s campaign issued the detailed response they sent to the paper in December when the story was being prepared. McCain campaign officials said the paper did not sufficiently include these explanations in their story.

According to [McCain aide Charlie] Black, the Times only went with the story now because The New Republic was set to run a piece next Monday about internal dissensions at the paper over whether to run the long-held article.

After the TNR reporter, Gabriel Sherman, began making phone calls to the Times and others outside the paper, they decided to publish, Black alleged.

The Times called the McCain campaign this afternoon to give them notice that they were going with the story and asked campaign officials if they wanted to say anything more.

“We said we have nothing else to say unless you’ve got new questions. And they didn’t,” Black said.

In a blog posting late Wednesday, TNR senior editor Noam Scheiber wrote: “The McCain campaign is apparently blaming TNR for forcing the Times' hand on this story. We can't yet confirm that. But we can say this: TNR correspondent Gabe Sherman is working on a piece about the Times' foot-dragging on the McCain story, and the back-and-forth within the paper about whether to publish it. Gabe's story will be online tomorrow.”

So there's a story behind the story at the New York Times -- or at least rumors. 

Meanwhile, the McCain campaign thinks the whole mess will go away.  After all, John McCain is a veteran and the National Enquirer oops the New York Times has no right... etc. etc.

Comments

[Dan]

It would be a shame if he didn't have an affair with her; it would have been nice if for once the lobbyist was the one getting screwed.

[PW]

She's getting some fun. We're getting screwed.