Posted on 05/29/2008 9:35:00 AM PDT by The_Republican
Senators Joseph I. Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, prominent surrogates for Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign, stepped down Wednesday from their positions with an independent group that released a pair of Internet advertisements attacking Senator Barack Obama on Iraq.
Mr. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, and Mr. Graham, Republican of South Carolina, were both on the policy advisory board to the organization, Vets for Freedom, which on Wednesday released its second Web advertisement in less than a week attacking Mr. Obama.
The senators’ positions with the group, which describes itself as a grass-roots advocacy organization pushing for victory in Iraq and Afghanistan, seemed to place them in contravention of new conflict-of-interest rules released by Mr. McCain’s campaign that specifically prohibit anyone “with a McCain campaign title or position” from participating in a “527 or other independent entity that makes public communications that support or oppose any presidential candidate.”
After inquiries from reporters, the senators released a joint letter to Vets for Freedom on Wednesday saying they had requested a leave from their positions to come into compliance with the new policy.
“This is obviously something we’re working through,” said Brian Rogers, a spokesman for the McCain campaign. “This is the kind of thing that happens when you have the strictest possible policy on these issues.”
The new policy was meant to head off embarrassing questions about connections of members of the McCain campaign to special interests that run counter to Mr. McCain’s reformist reputation. But adhering to that standard has proved complicated.
The new rules were prompted this month in part by revelations that Craig Shirley, a consultant to the campaign, was also paid by a 527 group that was criticizing Mr. Obama. Mr. Shirley stepped down from his role on Mr. McCain’s Virginia leadership team.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
This seems very dumb.
The headline gives ya the impression that Lieberman dumped McCain.
There can be no coordination between the official campaign and 527s. This was the right thing for Lieberman and Graham to do.
What wimps they are, I have zero respect for these two.
Unless you're mooveon.org, codepink.?, BDSprimetime.com et al!!!
And then this moon battery...
Not even the Dixie Chicks can say whatever they want(McCain goes to bat for fat mouthed trio)McCain called the Dixie Chicks moratorium ‘‘an incredible, incredible act,’’ explaining: ‘‘I was ... as offended as anyone by the statement of the Dixie Chicks. But to restrain their trade because they exercised their right of free speech to me is remarkable.’’ Not just incredible and remarkable, McCain told Dickey, but unconstitutional: ‘‘Because if someone else in another format offends you, and there’s a huge hue and cry, and you decide to censor those people, my friend, the erosion of the First Amendment in the United States of America is in progress.’’
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