Lost in the Excitement

Right before the onset of the current financial apocalypse and the ensuing shift of attention to the non-suspended campaign and the non-postponed debate, there was a story just beginning to break which is worth revisiting. It concerns John McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, and Davis's lobbyist connections to Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. I did one post on it, pointing to a nice piece of investigative work by the New York Times.

The reaction by the McCain campaign to the Times story was, of course, to come clean with a little straight talk attempt to demonize the Times.

I was looking around on YouTube for something else, and I came across the video clip embedded below, which provides a good review and reminder of what seemed like it was going to be The Story for a day or two. It's from Rachel Maddow's new show on MSNBC.

First, Maddow interviews Newsweek's Michael Isikoff, who dug up another important piece of the story, an excerpt of which follows.

But neither the Times story—nor the McCain campaign—revealed that Davis's lobbying firm, Davis Manafort, based in Washington, D.C., continued to receive $15,000 a month from Freddie Mac until last month—long after the Homeownership Alliance had been terminated. The two sources, who requested anonymity discussing sensitive information, told NEWSWEEK that Davis himself approached Freddie Mac in 2006 and asked for a new consulting arrangement that would allow his firm to continue to be paid. The arrangement was approved by Hollis McLoughlin, Freddie Mac's senior vice president for external relations, because "he [Davis] was John McCain's campaign manager and it was felt you couldn't say no," said one of the sources. [McLoughlin did not return phone calls].

When asked about his own campaign manager's associations with the mortgage giants, McCain, in an interview with CNBC on Sunday night, said that Davis "has had nothing to do" with the Homeownship Alliance since it disbanded and "I'll be glad to have his record examined by anybody who wants to look at it."

NB: The story was published in September, so "last month" means August.

After Isikoff, Maddow's second guest is Rosa Brooks, who among other things is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and an long-time favorite of mine from BloggingHeads.tv. This clip is worth keeping keeping mind as we await the next round of shenanigans from John McCain and his campaign.

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By the way, if you're cable- or TV-free like me, you might note that the hottest new thing on TV, The Rachel Maddow Show, has its own website. It's a little spare at the moment, lacking transcripts or easily navigable archives, but it's easy enough to watch the latest show, and it has an RSS feed to help remind you to do that. Worth checking out.

To think that I used to listen to her on the radio in a sleepy little town in western Massachusetts …