The Iseman Cometh

vicki-and-john.jpgOnly, she says she didn’t. Ahem.

Now, after more than seven months of silence, [Vicki] Iseman, who just turned 41, has decided to speak out and aggressively defend herself. In a series of interviews and e-mail exchanges with National Journal, she said she and McCain had a "strictly professional" and cordial relationship.

"I did not have a sexual relationship with Senator McCain," she said in a three-hour interview last month in a seventh-floor conference room in the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center. "I never had an affair or an inappropriate relationship with Senator McCain, and that means I never acted unethically in my dealings with the senator."

I love how Iseman believes the only unethical thing she could have done with McCain is to have fucked him–rather than to inappropriately influence him with gifts and money.

Curiously, though, Iseman knows precisely who might leak a story that she asked McCain to share a blanket with her once.

Iseman told National Journal that [John] Weaver was the unidentified aide who The Times‘ story said flew back to Washington on Paxson’s corporate jet with Iseman and McCain after the Florida fundraising event in February 1999. She says that The Times had asked her, in an e-mail, about an incident on the plane in which she reportedly asked McCain to share a blanket with her. Only Weaver, she says, could be the source for that allegation, which she heatedly denied. The Times did not publish the allegation, and Weaver strongly denies being the source of that information. [my emphasis]

This is what I don’t get. If she’s certain that only Weaver could be the source of the allegation, doesn’t that suggest she knows he–the only aide on the plane–was witness to something that only he would know? If she hadn’t asked to share her blankie with McCain, couldn’t anyone be the source for the allegation?

But Iseman doesn’t deny several other allegations the NYT made about her in its story. For example, she makes it quite clear that she plied McCain with money.

One of her principal assignments in the lobbying firm was to work the Senate Commerce Committee — and work it, she did. She established ties to committee staffers, including Mark Buse, who has been one of McCain’s closest aides and is now chief of staff in his Senate office. She recalls meeting McCain at the committee "in the mid-to-late 1990s." McCain was chairman of the panel from 1997 to 2001, and again from 2003 to 2005.

Describing her role with the committee and McCain’s first run for the White House, Iseman says she supported McCain’s bid and raised money for him. She thinks that she attended three fundraisers for him during that campaign. There is no question that she could get clients in to see McCain and the committee staff, she says, but she maintains that she had no "special" access to the senator.

And Iseman doesn’t deny she bragged about her close ties to McCain (though she does dispute John Weaver’s claim that they talked about it). 

In responding to the Times reporters by e-mail, Iseman acknowledged the meeting with Weaver but wrote, "I never discussed with him alleged things I had ‘told people,’ that made their way ‘back to’ him."

[snip]

"The conduct I was talking about," he says, "was her telling people that she had unusual access to the [Senate] Commerce Committee and the Senate office" of McCain.

And finally, she didn’t make a convincing case that she wasn’t flirting with McCain (aside from the blankie, I mean, which I’m sure she only did because she was cold). 

Former Senate aides, speaking anonymously, say that they saw no evidence that Iseman had a personal relationship with McCain, but they add that she could be flirtatious while working the Hill. "People see what they want to see," Iseman says, insisting, "I have not done anything" to justify such talk. These same former staffers also say that Iseman worked extremely hard for her clients.

[snip]

Former Senate staffers who know Iseman well say that she faces an uphill battle to re-establish her credentials on Capitol Hill. "This town can eat you up — and that’s what happened to her," a former McCain aide says. "That’s what happens sometimes in the Washington fast lane." Separately, another former Senate aide says that Iseman has become "kind of toxic" on the Hill. "She will be forever linked," he says, "as the lobbyist in question with John McCain."

Which is ultimately what the NYT said: that Iseman bragged about her ties to McCain, that that hurt his claim to be a maverick, that McCain did do unethical favors for her clients, and that campaign staffers intervened to try to get her away from McCain.

So the big news here, I guess, is that Vicki Iseman denies she ever asked McCain to share her blankie.

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  1. WilliamOckham says:

    The sidebar says that Iseman agreed to do an interview on 9/24. 9/24 was the day McCain ’suspended’ his campaign. I’m just sayin’….

    • emptywheel says:

      Yeah, and you saw her claim she came forward because of the coverage of Palin? As if all the true reporting about Palin would somehow cause her to want to get on the press bashing bus?

      I’m thinking this is a Rick Davis stunt to add to the media bashing. Only it doesn’t come off very well, since McCain’s own (current) staffers confirm she was flirting with him.

  2. MikeDM says:

    Let’s face it. If he actually did have a “personal relationship” with her, it would be Assault with a Dead Weapon.

  3. freepatriot says:

    so this helps mcsame how, exactly ???

    I’m not sayin that repuglitards didn’t plan this

    but how does changing the subject to mcsame’s questionable relationships help his campaign ???

    I can be a stupid as the next person

    so somebody try to sell me this

    ot, ted toobz takes the stand, that can’t be good …

    • cinnamonape says:

      She was asleep…I suspect that McCain’s blood is synthesized for Rohypnol. “My friend….” ZZZZZZ.

      BTW Did anyone think it rather weird that McCain kept referring to “Gypsy Plumber Joe” as “My Old Friend” when he actually (supposedly) has never met the guy in his life before?

      Either McCain is a habitual and pathological liar with his use of this “My old friend” bulldada…or perhaps he really has a long-term relationship with Joe Worzelbacher…who happens to have lived in Tucson as a young man, and happens to share the same last name as one of the Arizona guys that was imprisoned with Charles Keating for the S&L debacle back in the 1late 1980’s-early 1990’s.

  4. radiofreewill says:

    I did not have sexual relations with that man, Sen. McCain.

    My guess is Vicki and her Lobbying Buddies are trying to get out in front of an expose on the Direct Relationship between her Working on McCain and his Enthusiastic Support for Her Projects.

    If I remember the original piece, McCain’s Staff had clearly recognized that Vicki’s flirtatious access to him could potentially erupt in a scandal.

  5. bmaz says:

    So the big news here, I guess, is that Vicki Iseman denies she ever asked McCain to share her blankie.

    Or that a blankie was all McCain could offer, because he just couldn’t erect a tent.

  6. ThingsComeUndone says:

    EW she is a lobbyist she is paid to lie. I agree with Radiofreewill @ 14. Why is she coming out now is something about to be reported that will bring Viki back into the news?
    If we were the GOP the Viki story would have never died.

  7. bmaz says:

    Or, Iseman may have been Clenisized and, when she is saying she didn’t have sex, that still leaves moist cigars and blowjobs included in the subset of possible acts.

  8. Teddy Partridge says:

    “Only Weaver could be the source for that untrue allegation, since only Weaver could have, um, not seen it happen, yeah — that’s the ticket.”

    Whoever’s paying her to lie isn’t getting good value. And it might not be only the stink of McCain that’s causing her not to get work on Capitol Hill.

    • ratfood says:

      Just another attempt to divert attention from the economy. It reeks of desperation that McCain would prefer to have the media chase after his alleged mistress than focus on pertinent issues.

    • Loo Hoo. says:

      You may remember that I’m wondering what the hell kind of undergarments this creature is wearing. I can’t even remember what we called those gizmos to hold sanitary napkins in place before the sticky pads were available.

  9. Sixty Something says:

    So who in the media is covering for McCain? Would be willing to bet that some of them know the score about the blankie.

  10. eCAHNomics says:

    Hypothesis (h/t Rachel): scandal per day for every day until 11/4 to distract the MSM from the election. Today was the plumber. Tomorrow Iseman. Who knows what the day after.

  11. bonkers says:

    Surely last night’s moderator Bob Sheeper will get to the bottom of this story…well, as soon as he’s done saying that Obama will raise your taxes and McInsane won’t:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf3GL4gdc9k

    Will this deceiver retire already?!? And don’t pull any Brokaw-Michael Jordan, “Hey look, I’m back!” shit. The Old Guard stuck around (or came back) for this one last election to try to save it for the BigMoney stringpullers, but once Obama wins they’ll probably all pack away the microphone and make-up kit. Not a moment too soon.

  12. Pectopah2 says:

    Perhaps Iseman still has the blanket and wants to put it on ebay, so she needs to increase its value.

  13. Twain says:

    I don’t care about the affair – I just want someone to explain the front of the dress in the picture.

  14. SandiaBlanca says:

    Perhaps the simple explanation is that it was McCain who asked Iseman to share the blanket–not the other way around.

  15. radiofreewill says:

    “Are you cold, Mav?”

    “Naw, this blanket is more than I had during my five years at the Hilton.”

    “Can we discuss the mean old FCC now?”

    *zip!*

    stroke……….stroke……….stroke

    “Well, I know those people over at the FCC, and when they come to my committee, they fancy themselves as a bunch of regulators…”

    stroke…….stroke…….stroke

    “…but they’re really just my bitches, they’ll back down if I send them a burning…hot…letter…”

    stroke…stroke…stroke

    “Get something to me to sign by tomorroooooooooooooowwwwwww!”

  16. Jett says:

    I think I’m with John:

    http://www.americablog.com/200…..-with.html

    Perhaps someone is about to break a story proving that McCain and Iseman had a sexual relationship, and the McCain campaign asked Iseman to publicly deny it before the story comes out.

    This one seems plausible to me too.