Mr. Senator Straight Talk?

You might want to relax; this will only hurt for about four years.

To relate the gist of the story, right-wing blowhard Matt Drudge intimated back in December 2007 that there might be something up regarding Senator John McCain in his bid for the Presidency.

After that, communications silence.

Then about a week ago the New York Times (probably after vetting each and every source and running the whole kit and kaboodle by their lawyers) published a story. The sources in the story revealed that McCain had been very close to a lobbyist named Vicki Iseman in terms of currying favor for the firms she represented (anything of a sexual nature was left to the readers' jaded imaginings, and largely the fault of McCain's own past).

The campaign denied it, of course, while the Candidate himself just looked glum as he denied it. His Ice Queen Dominatrix wife stood by him (I like her, in a perverse way - the best kind, by the way).

One of the bones of contention is a story that, in 1999, McCain wrote to the FCC trying to get a permit for an Arizona media baron to buy a Pittsburgh station. McCain was the chairman of the board overseeing the FCC at the time. Allegedly, two letters were sent, drawing a rebuke from the head of the FCC at the time. Iseman apparently facilitated the contacts.

The campaign, of course, denied it, and has lawyered up with the addition of a criminal lawyer named Bob Bennett to the staff.

Yesterday, Newsweek dug up a deposition from 2002 where McCain admitted that he in fact had done the contacts alleged, and today the now-retired Lowell Paxson (the media baron in question) said basically that 'Mr. Straight Talk,' 'Mr. Integrity,' 'Mr. I Won't Betray the Public Trust' was talking out his ass.

What can we make of this?

The Right-Wing Noisemakers have already begun communicating in their inimitable style, farting and tapdancing in order to show that it's all a liberal plot to discredit a candidate that they themselves don't like or trust.

The Democrats are remaining eerily silent, as far as I can tell (although I thought I heard Howard Dean howling in orgasm at the news).

My take on this is that the New York Times wouldn't put this in print unless they had confirmed it and had more in the wings, waiting to dump out onto the page. If true and any wrongdoing can be construed from these activities, well, fraud and conspiracy anyone?

What's the protocol when a Presidential nominee gets indicted?