With a superspook's "high level of confidence" I'm issuing an intelligence estimate on what John McCain is doing this morning, without bothering with verification (you know, the way the real superspooks do it).
He is, I venture to say, running around the state of New Hampshire buying up every copy of the Washington Post he can get his hands on -- because splattered all over page A01 is a bloody indictment of his elaborate hypocrisy. Should this intel reach New Hampshire's peculiar independents with a fondness for going both ways, John is likely to find his love for them vastly unrequited next week.
The Post story -- more like a bill of particulars -- will read to those courted voters like discovered love letters to another. McCain's passion for deceit and betrayal will leave them in tears, sobbing as the jilted often do. For the only thing "straight" in John's talk has been, it turns out, the high hard one he's had for the monied boys.
All those denials of illicit hanky-panky with tawdry special interests? -- his avowals of fidelity to the defenseless human victims of Washington's insider and geometric corruption? Well, sometimes a man slips up. And sometimes the occasional slip morphs into a seedy addiction. And of this, it is now clear, John is tragically guilty; he's been caught red-handed in the tentacled arms of those others.
"As a presidential candidate this year," reports the Post, "McCain has found himself assiduously courting both lobbyists and their wealthy clients, offering them private audiences as part of his fundraising. He also counts more than 30 lobbyists among his chief fundraisers, more than any other presidential contender."
And his come-hither appeals have worked. Boy, have they worked. His would-be corporate and lobbyist lovers have queued at his political boudoir, each holding a number -- a sizable one. J.P. Morgan, General Electric, Xerox, Sony, Cablevision, BKSH & Associates (a lobbying firm for "drug companies, an oil company, an automaker, a telecommunications company, defense contractors and the steel industry, among others"), and the Loeffler Group (another lobbyist for "oil, auto and telecommunications companies, as well as a tobacco firm and an airline"), is but a partial list of his willing and eager "clients."
"The money is coming in very heavily now," said McCain with a smile on "This Week" yesterday. I'd be smiling, too, what with all that frequent and upscale intercourse.
It seems the facts of life have changed, in John's mind. In 2002 he condemned such dalliances, because "money," he gravely intoned, "does buy access in Washington, and access increases influence that often results in benefiting the few at the expense of the many." But now he's hired political pimps to make some revisionist points: "If you give to him," says his chief strategist, "you know there's no quid pro quo. People give to him because they want him to be president of the United States."
Isn't that sweet? That little love bug has nipped at the hard hearts of corporate tycoons and their callous lobbyists; there's not an ounce of self-interest in their pumping, throbbing chambers. They merely want to see their Johnny as president.
In 1991 the Senate ethics committee ruled Mr. McCain as a man of "poor judgment," but it knew but a third of it. McCain would soon add, "and superior cynicism, with swinish hypocrisy to boot."
For that is McCain's real "Iron Triangle" -- his 2000 shibboleth that even then was subject to modification, drifting as it did from "special interests, campaign finance and lobbying" on some days to "money, lobbyists and legislation" on others.
But John finally nailed it down. He finally narrowed his ferric geometry beyond further interpretation. Others may offer money, lobbyists and legislation, but John brings you poor judgment, cynicism and hypocrisy.
I've asked it before and I'll ask it again: Where do Republicans get these guys? Hey, it's not like I'm pimping for some Democrat. When that fateful day comes to cast a vote for the next executive whore, I might just write in the name of George Carlin. Better to champion a politically knowledgeable and honestly funny clown than another of these humorless prostitutes.