Is it just me or does this sound like Schlesinger must have heard rumors about the affair the New York Times reported on this week? This excerpt is from a November 1998 journal entry:
Journals 1952-2000, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
The Penquin Press
Published 2007
(Page 833)
McCain is a loose cannon. He has commendably defied his party on campaign finance, but he is also capable of bizarre behavior. Recently, speaking at a Republican dinner, he told the following so-called joke: why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because she is the illegitimate child of Hillary Clinton and Janet Reno. This plus his reputedly wayward sex life will surely destroy his evident presidential aspirations.
Is this timeline just a coincidence?
From the New York Times:
A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.
When news organizations reported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist’s client, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement....
A champion of deregulation, Mr. McCain wrote letters in 1998 and 1999 to the Federal Communications Commission urging it to uphold marketing agreements allowing a television company to control two stations in the same city, a crucial issue for Glencairn Ltd., one of Ms. Iseman’s clients. He introduced a bill to create tax incentives for minority ownership of stations; Ms. Iseman represented several businesses seeking such a program. And he twice tried to advance legislation that would permit a company to control television stations in overlapping markets, an important issue for Paxson.
From Open Secrets:
Iseman, Vicki
Lobbyist Profile, 1998
Client
CanWest
Capstar Broadcasting Partners
Carnival Corp
City of Palm Springs, CA
Computer Sciences Corp
Paxson Communications