McCain's campaign manager linked to country's problems???

[Neil D]

This is GOTTA be true, as this is from FoxNews....[/tic]

The firm owned by John McCain’s campaign manager reportedly received a monthly fee of $15,000 by one of the two giant housing lenders taken over by the federal government this month.

The McCain campaign responded on Wednesday by calling the report “demonstrably false.”

In an article first posted on its Web site Tuesday, The New York Times reports unnamed sources saying Davis & Manafort was paid by Freddie Mac, and Davis himself received more than $30,000 a month directly for five years starting in 2000. Those payments came from both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the other housing entity now under government control because of the crisis in the financial markets.

The article said that even though Davis took a leave from the firm to join McCain’s campaign, as a partner he continues to share in the profits.

But a McCain campaign aide disputed the claim that Davis has received any compensation from the firm since taking his leave in December 2006. The aide told FOX News that Davis stopped taking a salary and draws no partnership distribution from the firm.

“Mr. Davis has seen no income from Davis Manafort since 2006. Zero. Mr. Davis has received no salary or compensation since 2006. Mr. Davis has received no profit or partner distributions from that firm on any basis — weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual — since 2006. Again, zero. Neither has Mr. Davis received any equity in the firm based on profits derived since his financial separation from Davis Manafort in 2006,” said McCain campaign spokesman Michael Goldfarb.

“Further, and missing from the Times’ reporting, Mr. Davis has never — never — been a lobbyist for either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Mr. Davis has not served as a registered lobbyist since 2005.”

Tuesday’s report escalated a confrontation between the McCain campaign and The New York Times that flared up a day earlier, when the paper first reported that campaign manager Rick Davis was paid nearly $2 million over five years for defending both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae against stricter regulations.

McCain adviser Steve Schmidt responded to the earlier report by lashing out at the newspaper, saying it was “in the tank” for Barack Obama and had “cast aside its journalistic integrity and tradition.” Times editor Bill Keller defended the newspaper and its coverage in a written statement.

Goldfarb repeated the campaign’s recent claims that the newspaper is an “advocacy organization” for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

“The New York Times, in what can only be explained as a willful disregard of the truth, failed to research this story or present any semblance of a fairminded treatment of the facts closely at hand,” he said. “Therefore this ‘report’ from The New York Times must be evaluated in the context of its intent and purpose. It is a partisan attack falsely labeled as objective news.”

McCain has tied Obama to Fannie and Freddie’s troubles and has called on Jim Johnson and Franklin Raines — both Obama supporters and former Fannie Mae executives — to return million-dollar “golden parachute” payments they received from the corporation after leaving. Obama had chosen Johnson to run his vice presidential search committee, but Johnson stepped down after McCain and other Republicans began criticizing his home mortgage deals.

McCain’s campaign recently released a television ad that says Raines is among those advising Obama on housing policy. Obama’s campaign released a statement from Raines, who says he is not an Obama adviser.

An Obama spokesman said the report makes clear that Davis and McCain are not telling the truth about Davis’ financial relationship with Freddie Mac.

“It’s troubling not only that Davis’ firm — with which he is still associated and which the McCain campaign paid directly last year — continued to be compensated by Freddie Mac until as recently as last month, but that the firm did little work and apparently was being paid simply to provide access to the McCain campaign,” said Obama communications director Dan Pfeiffer. “The question that now needs to be answered is this: did Freddie Mac or any other special interests buy access to John McCain by compensating top officials, including Rick Davis?”

[Neil D]

....And yet the "liberal" rag Huffington News reports this.....And by the way, the NY Times is NOT backing away from it's story, at the time of this post....

Two reports tonight, one from the New York Times, and the other from Newsweek, contradict John McCain's statement this week that his campaign manager Rick Davis had no involvement with mortgage giant Freddie Mac for the last several years. The Times reports:

One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain's campaign manager from the end of 2005 through last month, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement. The disclosure contradicts a statement Sunday night by Mr. McCain that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had no involvement with the company for the last several years. Mr. Davis's firm received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, the people said...

...On Sunday, in an interview with CNBC and The New York Times, Mr. McCain responded to a question about Mr. Davis's role in the advocacy group through 2005 by saying that his campaign manager "has had nothing to do with it since, and I'll be glad to have his record examined by anybody who wants to look at it."

Newsweek confirms the story:

Freddie Mac had previously paid an advocacy group run by Davis, called the Homeownership Alliance, $30,000 a month until the end 2005, when that group was dissolved. That relationship was the subject of a New York Times story Monday, which drew angry denunciations from the McCain campaign. McCain and his aides have vehemently objected to suggestions that Davis has ties to Freddie Mac-an especially sensitive issue given that the Republican presidential candidate has blamed "the lobbyists, politicians and bureaucrats" for the mortgage crisis that recently prompted the Bush administration to take over both Freddie Mac and its companion, Fannie Mae, and put it under federal conservatorship.

But neither the Times story -- nor the McCain campaign -- revealed that Davis's firm, the Washington, D.C. based lobbying firm Davis Manafort, 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 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].

[Dr. Shane]

Guilt by association.

Anyone want to talk about Reverend Jeremiah Wright?

I didn't think so.

[Neil D]

Guilt by association.

Anyone want to talk about Reverend Jeremiah Wright?

I didn't think so.

Obama wasn't taking money from Reverend Wright....on a monthly basis....at $30k per month....