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 ypocrisy
isn't such an awful thing. It represents the breathing space between
our fallen selves and our higher ideals.
But, that said, it's still worth pausing to relish the latest,
positively delightful example of McCainiac hypocrisy, as reported
in an excellent Roll Call article last week. (To be fair,
McCain has actually been on a nice run recently, as NR noted
last issue).
It wasn't too long ago (way back in 1996) that John McCain wanted
to ban PACs, and excoriated anyone so shortsighted and corrupt as
to dare to oppose his effort. He's now dropped that particular enthusiasm,
but still rails, of course, against Big Money in politics.
Well, now we learn that not only did McCain's PAC, Straight Talk
America, raise $1.3 million in the first six months of this year
— it spent almost half of it on consultants and fundraising. Hey,
straight talk is expensive!
According to Roll Call, McCain consultant John Weaver gets
$15,000 a month from the PAC. In the course of his selfless guerrilla
war on Big Money, Weaver also spent more than $10,000 to stay at
the Hotel George on Capitol Hill (he lives in New Hampshire).
Now, I begrudge the talented Weaver none of this money. He was
part of the hungry and imaginative cadre that made McCain such an
early success in the Republican primaries. So, as far as I know,
Weaver gives the best advice money can buy on how to talk straight.
(Indeed, it would probably be folly for McCain even to try
to talk straight without Weaver whispering in his ear.)
But what is irritating is that, during the campaign, McCain blasted
as corrupt National Right to Life Committee's Doug Johnson (by name)
and everyone like him (in general) for engaging in exactly this
sort of activity — fundraising and Washington advocacy on behalf
of a cause. (And I hazard to guess that Johnson does it more efficiently
than the top-heavy Straight Talk America — Kate O'Beirne profiles
Johnson in the latest NR as "the most effective lobbyist
in Washington.")
So, if he cares at all about consistency, McCain owes Johnson an
apology. But it's not likely: The incoherent campaign for campaign-finance
reform is having more and more trouble cohering.
For instance, I think offtrack betting in New York City is probably
corrupt, or if not corrupt in the strict fixed-races sense, it's
at least a grubby business. So, I would never become a bookie.
If John Weaver really thinks Big Money politics is corrupt, one
would think he'd go out of his way to avoid becoming a Big Money
Washington consultant. It is on this principle that, say, televangelists
don't cavort with strippers, or when they're caught doing it, at
least act really embarrassed.
Weaver, however, is not embarrassed. His excuse is that he's the
only honest man in Washington. "It's the difference between
people who are in Washington to get something done and people who
are in Washington who want to be someone," Weaver told Roll
Call.
What Weaver won't acknowledge is that most every other consultant/lobbyist
type in Washington is in the business for roughly the same reason
he is: some combination of passion, ideology, and self-interest
that impels them to camp out in Washington and try to change the
nation's laws.
Weaver can't admit this, of course, because it would undermine
the central conceit of campaign-finance reform: that political advocacy
— consulting, lobbying, the whole business — is somehow rotten to
the core. So Weaver, a perfectly pleasant man, has to keep up at
least a public posture of being a self-righteous, hypocritical bore.
And, come to think of it, it's hard to imagine a more appropriate
way to serve John McCain. Give that man a raise!
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