On Meet the Press, Brooks suggested McCain "only wrote two letters" as Commerce chairman

On the February 24 edition of Meet the Press, during a discussion of a February 21 New York Times article about Sen. John McCain's relationship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman, whose firm represented Paxson Communications, Times columnist David Brooks stated: "He [McCain] was chairman of the Commerce Committee. Suppose he did write these letters [to the Federal Communications Commission] for Paxson -- which he may have -- I don't really understand the case." Brooks then added: "The Commerce Committee is one of the most lobbied committees on Capitol Hill. If he only wrote two letters out of all that time, that means he was batting 99 percent." Notwithstanding Brooks' stated ignorance about the issue, McCain did -- as host Tim Russert pointed out -- write two letters urging the FCC to reach a decision on an issue involving Paxson. Moreover, contrary to Brooks' suggestion that McCain "only wrote two letters out of all that time," the Times reported on February 23 that, in a separate case affecting another of Iseman's clients, McCain sent a series of letters to the FCC, including "an unusually blunt letter to the head of the Federal Communications Commission, warning that he would try to overhaul the agency if it closed a broadcast ownership loophole."

Following Brooks' statement that McCain "may have" written two letters "for Paxson," Russert noted that McCain "did write" the letters. The Washington Post reported on February 21:

In late 1999, McCain wrote two letters to the FCC urging a vote on the sale to Paxson of a Pittsburgh television station. The sale had been highly contentious in Pittsburgh and involved a multipronged lobbying effort among the parties to the deal.

At the time he sent the first letter, McCain had flown on Paxson's corporate jet four times to appear at campaign events and had received $20,000 in campaign donations from Paxson and its law firm. The second letter came on Dec. 10, a day after the company's jet ferried him to a Florida fundraiser that was held aboard a yacht in West Palm Beach.

On January 6, 2000, the Times published McCain's December 10, 1999, letter to William E. Kennard, then the FCC chairman, which referred to an earlier letter McCain had sent Kennard: "On Nov. 17, I wrote you expressing concern over the protracted pendency of the pending applications for assignment of licenses of WQEX-TV and WPCB-TV, Pittsburgh, Pa. I requested that the commission take final action on these applications at its open meeting in December, if it had not acted on them in the intention pursuant to the notation voting process. I enclose a copy of this letter for your reference." McCain's December 1999 letter stated: "The sole purpose of this request is to secure final action on a matter that has now been pending for over two years. I emphasize that my purpose is not to suggest in any way how you should vote -- merely that you vote."

The Times also published an excerpt from Kennard's reply to McCain:

As you know, this application raises important and very difficult policy issues. I wholeheartedly agree that prompter commission action on this matter would have been preferable.

Your letter, however, comes at a sensitive time in the deliberative process as the individual commissioners finalize their views and their votes on this matter. I must respectfully note that it is highly unusual for the commissioners to be asked to publicly announce their voting status on a matter that is still pending. I am concerned that inquiries concerning the individual deliberations of each commissioner could have procedural and substantive impacts on the commission's deliberations and, thus, on the due process rights of the parties.

Further, contrary to Brooks' suggestion that McCain "only wrote two letters" as chairman of the Commerce Committee, the Times reported on February 23 that, on a separate issue, McCain -- along with then-Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) -- sent a letter to the FCC on December 1, 1998, "urg[ing] the commission to abandon plans to close a loophole vitally important to Glencairn Ltd., a client of Vicki Iseman, a lobbyist." The Times reported that McCain's December 1 letter warned that the FCC's plan to close the loophole, which McCain argued constituted a refusal to follow congressional intent, "will become part of our overall review of the commission's functions and structure during the next session of Congress."

According to the Times, McCain sent another letter to the FCC on December 7, 1998, and a third one -- along with four other senators -- on February 11, 1999.

From the February 23 New York Times article:

In late 1998, Senator John McCain sent an unusually blunt letter to the head of the Federal Communications Commission, warning that he would try to overhaul the agency if it closed a broadcast ownership loophole.

The letter, and two later ones signed by Mr. McCain, then chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, urged the commission to abandon plans to close a loophole vitally important to Glencairn Ltd., a client of Vicki Iseman, a lobbyist. The provision enabled one of the nation's largest broadcasting companies, Sinclair, to use a marketing agreement with Glencairn, a far smaller broadcaster, to get around a restriction barring single ownership of two television stations in the same city.

[...]

On Glencairn, the campaign said Mr. McCain's efforts to retain the loophole were not done at Ms. Iseman's request. It said Mr. McCain was merely directing the commission to "not act in a manner contradictory to Congressional intent." Mr. McCain wrote in the letters that a 1996 law, the telecommunications act, required the loophole; a legal opinion by the staff of the commission took the opposite view.

A review of the record, including agency records now at the National Archives and interviews with participants, shows that Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, played a significant role in killing the plan to eliminate the loophole. His actions followed requests by Ms. Iseman and lobbyists at other broadcasting companies, according to lobbying records and Congressional aides.

Over the years, Mr. McCain has taken varying positions on broadcast ownership issues. He has supported the relaxation of the ownership rules, but he has also been sharply critical of rules that permit too much concentration of ownership in a single market.

By November 1998, the F.C.C. was planning to strike down broadcasting marketing agreements, a potentially ruinous development for Glencairn. But after receiving Mr. McCain's Dec. 1 letter, it put off consideration of the issue.

"To the extent the F.C.C. shows itself incapable of following Congressional intent," the letter said, "these issues will become part of our overall review of the commission's functions and structure during the next session of Congress."

The letter, sent from Mr. McCain's office by his staff at the commerce committee, was also signed by Senator Conrad Burns, Republican of Montana and chairman of a communications subcommittee. It was uncharacteristic of Mr. McCain, according to a review of dozens of letters sent by him to the commission during the same period.

It was the only letter that contained a suggestion that a failure to act would result in the possible overhaul of the agency.

The letter said that "as a leading participant in the passage of the 1996 Act, I have a very clear understanding" of the law's intent and why it required the ownership loophole to be preserved. Mr. McCain was one of five senators -- and the only Republican -- to vote against the act. He has also been an outspoken critic of it.

While other companies also complained to Congress about the plan to close the loophole, the issue was particularly important to Sinclair because it had more marketing agreements than any in the nation. For its part, Glencairn appeared to have been getting little support in Congress until it retained Ms. Iseman in 1998.

Edwin Edwards, who was the president of the company at the time, said in a recent interview that after retaining Ms. Iseman, he was able to get heard by Mr. McCain.

"We were pounding the pavement in Washington," Mr. Edwards said. "We recruited help from as many people as we could. We knocked on every door just trying to get support."

The campaign said that Mr. McCain never spoke with Ms. Iseman about the issue, but that she did speak to his staff about it. Mr. Edwards and Mr. McCain met on July 20, 1999, according to the campaign.

After the commission postponed consideration of the issue, Mr. McCain signed a second letter to the agency on Dec. 7, 1998, in support of local marketing agreements, and a third one on Feb. 11, 1999. The third letter was signed by four other lawmakers. Ultimately, the F.C.C. loosened the rules to permit a company to own two television stations in some markets.

From the February 24 edition of NBC's Meet the Press:

BROOKS: My problem is, you know, Obama went after McCain on having lobbyists on the bus -- and that may or may not be true. It is true. Charlie Black is a lobbyist. Rick Davis, his manager, is a lobbyist. But the guy has a record. Obama has a fine record on ethics, but John McCain has a record for 23 years. Every year, he goes to the floor of the Senate and makes fun of the earmarks that lobbyists have produced. And his colleagues take a little piece of skin out of his back for ridiculing them. He tackled Jack Abramoff even though it made the Republican Party very uncomfortable. He tackled Boeing.

He was chairman of the Commerce Committee. Suppose he did write these letters for Paxson -- which he may have -- I don't really understand the case. The Commerce Committee is one of the most lobbied committees on Capitol Hill. If he only wrote two letters out of all that time, that means he was batting 99 percent. And I'd hate to think that Barack Obama is just going to cherry-pick a few things and not look at the whole record. It seems to me McCain has a pretty good case on this issue as someone who's been pretty tough on lobbyists over the course of his career.

RUSSERT: But there will be references to the Keating Five, which he was part of. There will be references to those letters, which he did write. There will be references to money from people, who have business before the committee, donating to the campaign. It's going to happen.

BROOKS: No, obviously, it's fair commentary. I guess my point would be: If somebody aims at purity, and then hits 95 percent, do we -- how much do we fault them in a world in which a lot of members of the Senate, frankly, are hitting 25 percent and are wholly owned subsidiaries of lobbyists?

RUSSERT: You did write that if John McCain is publicly contradicted or challenged on any of his comments regarding his news conference, it would be fatal for his campaign.

BROOKS: Yeah, I think -- I was struck by the tone of that conference. It was total. It was -- as a friend of mine said -- he went all in. If they can produce evidence of an affair, then that "no," which he gave to [NBC News Capital Hill correspondent] Kelly O'Donnell, that's it. Because he was pretty definite, and I assume he's not stupid. He wouldn't have said it that bluntly. He could have said, about the meeting about the relationship, "I don't remember." He didn't say that. He said "no."