Just So I'm The First To This Joke

This is a story about Iseman and Maverick.



(by the way, the McCain campaign's response is here. Also, he hired a lawyer late last year, Robert Bennett actually, the guy who defended Bill Clinton in the Lewinsky case, to knock down allegations that he "did favors for a D.C. lobbyist." Curiouser and curiouser.)

UPDATE: WaPo adds detail.

Concern about Iseman's presence around McCain at one point led to her being banned from his Senate office, according to sources close to McCain.

Either McCain's people are the most paranoid in the world, or there's some serious stuff underneath all of this. You don't ban someone from a Senate office for no reason, even if you are trying to uphold a squeaky-clean image.

UPDATE II: I think Yglesias has this right:

Does John McCain's campaign really want to go on record with the idea that he has "never done favors for special interests or lobbyists"? I would, personally, find it shocking if there were truly zero instances in the man's 25 year congressional career in which he did something for a special interest. What about Charles Keating? This seems like an invitation for trouble down the road.

The fact that telecom lobbyists with business in front of the Senate Committee he chaired were on the campaign plane and jetting around with him is really enough smoke on that one. McCain is a creature of Washington, and as such he's caught up in the whole ball of corruption. But he's a Villager in high standing, so I expect the media to try to take the bullet for him.

UPDATE III: I'm a damn prophet.