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WASHINGTON - Sen. John McCain's ethics entanglement with a wealthy banker ultimately convicted of swindling investors was such a disturbing, formative experience in his political career that he compares the scandal in some ways to the five years he was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. "I faced in Vietnam, at times, very real threats to life and limb," McCain told The Associated Press. "But while my sense of honor was tested in prison, it was not questioned. During the Keating inquiry, it was, and I regretted that very much." In his early days as a freshman senator,...

Richard Clarke, who served as President Bush’s chief of counterterrorism, has claimed sole responsibility for approving flights of Saudi Arabian citizens, including members of Osama bin Laden’s family, from the United States immediately after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. pedro sa da bandeira Former White House counterterrorism adviser testifies before the 9-11 commission. In an interview with The Hill yesterday, Clarke said, “I take responsibility for it. I don’t think it was a mistake, and I’d do it again.” Most of the 26 passengers aboard one flight, which departed from the United States on Sept. 20, 2001, were relatives...

Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee for president, has been linked by documents and testimony to another alleged case of what critics are calling influence peddling, this time involving a minority broadcaster in Pittsburgh. The New York Times last week published a major, controversial expose that insinuated McCain had a romantic relationship with telecommunications lobbyist Vicki Iseman, whose clients had a large stake in decisions made by the Senate Commerce Committeee McCain headed. The report, however, was denied by McCain and widely discredited for lack of evidence. According to his own testimony, it wasn't until he decided to give...

WASHINGTON - A former Paxson Communications president said Saturday he never met with John McCain about the Arizona senator writing letters to the Federal Communications Commission regarding the regulatory delay of a Pittsburgh TV station sale. Dean Goodman, who was in charge of the company's lobbying efforts in 1999, told The Associated Press he also doubts that chief executive Lowell W. "Bud" Paxson met with McCain over the issue, and said he doesn't recall such a meeting. McCain's presidential campaign said the Arizona senator and then-chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee did not meet with Paxson or his lobbyist, Vicki...

Allegations about Sen. John McCain's relationship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman have resurrected questions over his role in WQED Pittsburgh's controversial, but ultimately unsuccessful, efforts to sell its sister television station WQEX-16 in the 1990s. The proposed three-way deal involved a license swap between Ms. Iseman's client, Paxson Communications Corp., and Christian broadcaster Cornerstone TeleVision of Wall, which operated WPCB Channel 40. The transaction called for Channel 40 to assume the noncommercial license of Channel 16 and sell its own commercial license to Paxson for $35 million, split between Cornerstone and cash-strapped WQED. Paxson would gain entry into the Pittsburgh market...

WQEX deal wins at FCC, loses in the end Originally published in Current, Jan. 24, 2000 By Steve Behrens Seventeen million dollars slipped through WQED's fingers last week when a partner in its long-delayed deal to sell sister channel WQEX abruptly backed out, even though they had won a go-ahead at the FCC a month earlier. George Miles, president of the Pittsburgh station, paraphrased a newspaper report on the turnabout: "We have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory." Important issues about pubcasting's reserved channels were at stake in both WQED's victory and its defeat, but they got little attention...