I would have a better chance of getting an answer to my question, here---as it is more of an accusation, than a question.

I get the feeling that the nyt would not have gone with a story like this, unless they had more information---which will emerge later.

How significant would the additional information be, how long until something is added, or is what we have seen all that we will get?

The story is not whether Senator Wackadoo got his body parts pleasured . . . The story is how much is America going to be on the hook for once we have to bail out hhis latest folly fun pal.

Keating cost us $4+ billion.

Ms Vickie may have cost us the freedom of the Press . . .

The unfortunate thing about the NYT article is that it led with the salatious undertones of the story: Communications industry lobbyist who is young, pretty and blond, cultivates overly friendly replationsship with powerful Senator, who chairs the Communications Committee.

The Washington Post does a thorough job of reporting on a specific example of what could be viewed as undue influence.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/22/AR2008022202634.html?wpisrc=newsletter

It provides some interesting context. Lobbyist Vicki Iseman succeed in getting McCain to write two letters to the FCC to pressure a decision (without advocating what that decision should be) on a very publicly contentious television station swap that needed FCC sanction. The FCC Chair wrote back "warning McCain that he had breached FCC policy." At least one commissioner felt pressured and called McCains efforts "interference" and "offensive."

Lobbyist Iseman's efforts included, among other things, arranging a meeting between McCain and the CEO of her client corporation, arranging for McCain to use one of the corporation's private jets for campaign trips in 2000, and a Palm Beach FL fundraiser for McCain hosted by her firm on a cruise ship owned by another client company.

The WP article also offers some interesting details about Viki Iseman, noting that she arrived in DC in 1990 as a recent college-grad in elementary education. Took a job as a receptionist at her lobbying firm, became special assistant to the president within a year, moved up quickly to become a lobbyist, the firm's youngest partner, a specialist in communications issues, and a special friend to the Chair of the Senate Communications Committee. Sounds like she is prodigy.

McCain blows a lot of smoke about the undue influence of lobbyists. Does he really want to portray this matter as business as usual and an example of the hightest standards of ethical behavior by a Senator?