WaPo Manufactures McCain Scandal:
  • A few weeks ago, the New York Times tried to manufacture a McCain land deal scandal and today it’s the Washington Post’s turn.

    The front-page headline of Post staff writer Matthew Mosk’s story is titled “McCain Pushed Land Swap that Benefits Backer.” It says McCain negotiated a land swap to allow Arizona rancher Fred Ruskin to exchange his checkerboard of property located in the Prescott National Forest for an equal piece of continuous federal land that was later sold for development. Mainly because the developer, Steven A. Betts, who purchased the land from Ruskin is a donor to McCain’s presidential campaign, reporter Mosk smells trouble.

    But Mosk never proves a connection between the donations and the deal, and there are many details he left out, some provided in ample detail by the McCain campaign, the rancher and the businessman.

    Firstly, McCain didn’t single handedly negotiate the deal even though Mosk’s headline makes it sounds as if he did. The highly-scrutinized land swap is the biggest in Arizona’s history and passed the House and Senate in July 2005 after receiving a laundry list of endorsements from Arizona-based groups and media.

    It was even supported by Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano, and for good reason. A 2004 editorial by the Arizona Republic applauded the swap because it “will consolidate 70,000 acres of environmentally sensitive Forest Service lands and those owned by rancher Fred Ruskin, doubling the acreage for public access and recreation.”

    “The exchange is a blessing for several youth camps that will able to gain title so they can better manage their assets in the national forest,” it praised.

    McCain’s role in passing the bill is heightened for the sake of Mosk’s story. McCain initially withheld his support of the swap based on environmental concerns.

    [Later, McCain and others came up with a compromise which included numerous protections and thereafter] McCain introduced the bill “at the request of the U.S. Forest Service, as well as many Northern Arizona communities…to improve the management of forest lands and conservation of natural resources. The legislation also provided communities with an opportunity to acquire land needed for economic development, community services and open space.”

    Although the title of Mosk’s story is titled “McCain Pushed Land Swap that Benefits Backer” nothing shows McCain was aware Betts’s company, SunCor, would later buy the land from Ruskin. And, according to campaign finance records Ruskin has never donated money to McCain.

    “SunCor had not remotely entered the picture at the time Sen McCain decided to support the exchange, and it was to be another eighteen months before they actually invested in the ranch,” Ruskin’s letter to Mosk stated.

    In fact, when Mosk interviewed Betts, Betts told Mosk there was “absolutely no” connections between his contributions to McCain’s campaign and purchase. On behalf of McCain, spokesman Rogers said “at no time during the consideration of this legislation was there any involvement with SunCor.”


In short, McCain is asked to sign on to a federal land swap that is supported by the majority of his constituents. He works to make sure the deal is good for the environment and the agrees to support it, along with every other major political figure in the state.

Some time later, after McCain's involvement is finished (and years after he was originally asked to support the legislation), some of the land involved gets sold by a private developer to someone who happened to donate money to McCain at one point.

This, the Washington Post hints, is some sort of scandal.

Sh'yeah...right....

This was all predictable, of course. Just as whomod went from loving McCain to hating him as soon as it looked like McCain was the GOP nominee, now that his opponent is Obama, the media savior, McCain is going to be the target of all sorts of crap from the liberal press.