fucker

Wright. Hamas. Lapel pins. Out of touch. Elitist.

Now this is out there, we can move on to the subjects the American people really care about.

Did you know McCain throws a mean BBQ?

A favor given for campaign contributions, and one can't help but wonder how much of the profit came back as even more contributions.

I came here to say what bubba, gregor, and Media said...

I wonder how much traction these stories on McCain are going go get outside of the liberal blogosphere.

The more I learn about McCain from, say, Atrios or JMM or Yglesias or Keith O or Rachel Maddow, the more I find him despicable and disgusting. I'm surprised at how little I knew about him just 4 months ago. But will any of these seep into the awareness of the greater US public, whose opinions are generally positive and trusting?

Good for the NYT. First, they broke the story of the military "analysts" and now this. Looks like they're on a roll.

For more infomation on Don Diamond, look at the Tucson Weekly's website (with easy-to-search archives--imagine that, news media!) using terms such as "legendary land speculator" and "growth".

When you have a big, significant businessman like myself, why wouldn’t you want to help move things along? What else would they do? They waste so much time with legislation.�

Yeah... What better job does government have than to push constituency special interests? Donald Diamond is, by his own admission, the scummiest of the government bottom-feeders. But those who promote and enable his type--especially those who do so while wrapping themselves in in a cloak of patriotism--are the worst of the worst (that'd be you McCain).

Don Diamond is a royal prick.

It's good to see him taking such good care of Forgotten America. I hear he's going to Selma to lay a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Grand Dragon.

This says nothing about McCain's character. BARACK OBAMA DOESN'T WEAR LAPEL PINS!!!11!

Look, the modern Republican Party is the largest organized crime operation in American history. How quickly people forget Duke Cunningham and Jack Abramoff, both of whom knew and were friends with John McCain. They were also the biggest crooks ever connected with the U.S. Congress. Who you associate with in your Congressional dealings is far more important to me and to most Americans, than who your pastor is or some guy that serves on the same not-for-profit board as you serve on. By that measure, McCain's associations are far more troubling than Obama's.

We ought to put together one of those emails like we all get, you know -- the ones you have to check on Snopes.com or truthorfiction.com, because you kinda think they're e-rumors. The people that forward this trash never check the validity themselves and I'm always sending them a link to Snopes.

Anyway, this email could contain synopses of these articles about McCain and the Republican Party. Then we could send it to all our uninformed contacts who send us those trash emails.

During the 2004 election, a neighbor sent me trash emails glorifying Bush. I, in turn, sent her damning news articles about Bush that I'd read online, hoping she'd send them on to her magnitude of email contacts. One day, I got an email from a woman from Vancouver, Washington (I live in Virginia.) who told me she'd been reading my news articles, that George Bush was a godly man and that I needed to get right with God -- the end was near!

Donald Diamond is a very lucky fellow. He might have been saddled with an ethically constrained senator. Fortunately for him John's office is an ethics free zone.

Associates say he revels in his ability to "work the system," as his friend and sometimes partner, Stanley Abrams, put it: "Nobody is as connected as Donald."

Wow, that's some "ability." Sounds more to me like just being born with the right friends, in the right place and at the right time. I'm sure countless other people could possess that "ability" too if they'd been born into wealth.

"a constituent matter" is just the phrase McCain uses when asked about the Keating 5 Savings and Loan debacle. While some news organs have reminded the world about McCain's serious lack of integrity in this matter, the stench seems not to stick to him.

I remember driving by Fort Ord in the 90's thinking it was severely out of equilibrium with local development. I figured there must be a lot of unexploded artillery shells in the sand or something.

Diamond held the property for two years and sold it for only 120 times the purchase price? Man, McCain's office doesn't provide stellar constituent service. If I could pick up a piece of federal property and sell it for 500 times the purchase price, now, that's a good deal for the taxpayers.

Captain McCain needs to set the bar much higher if he expects to be the candidate for socializing costs and privatizing profits.

In retrospect, I guess the developers were just jockeying for position.

BTW, 250K? Hell, I think a significant number of McCain constituents could have gotten a 250K bank loan. I wonder how he picked this one.

Diamond is an example of the real-estate inside player who uses the system to confound community planning. Tucson, a generation or so ago, was actually a fairly nice place. Today, it's a suburbanized hellhole that rivals Phoenix for bad traffic and drive-by ugliness. Diamond was a key figure in this transformation.

McCain has among his economic advisors Kevin Hassett (co-author of Dow 36,000) who blames our economic woes on land-use planning. I get that we're not going to be debating cities and planning this election, but if we really loved this country (as opposed to money itself), we'd want to know why one candidate is so deep in the pocket of the real estate-industrial complex.

I knew it! McCain is a crook.

McCain will be able to look into Putin's soul and see a kindred spirit. If only Fidel was still in charge...

If I go to a thousand cocktail parties, can I have a few million dollars, too? Hey, hobnobbing is hard work.

Three things about this. First, Diamond has never been indicted for anything, unlike supporters for Obama and Clinton. Second, McCain didn't always lend his name to deals Diamond wanted to close. Lastly, McCain didn't forward federal money to Diamond for his business, unlike Obama and Clinton.

"Liberals" are going to have to do a much better job of smearing McCain than this. Considering it's the NYT, and their last attempt was worthy of the National Enquirer, maybe you all should just give up. "Liberals" are looking stupid.

SteveIL

Constituent services are an important function. Most of the time they include nudging the Social Security Administration to hear a disability claim or maybe dealing with a home emergency facing a member of the armed forces. Making sure a chum gets a chance to buy prime Federal real estate at a rock bottom price is not a normal constituent service. It stinks to high heaven. Frankly, on its face it is more outrageous than the scandal that sunk Duke Cunningham.

SteveIL, defending the indefensible seems to be the Conservative mantra these days.

"Three things about this."

We can hardly wait....

"First, Diamond has never been indicted for anything"

Strawman, since nobody claimed he had. What Diamond and McCain did was unethical, not illegal. You do remember ethics, right?

"unlike supporters for Obama and Clinton. Second, McCain didn't always lend his name to deals Diamond wanted to close."

ROFL.... And this is relevant, why, exactly?

"Lastly, McCain didn't forward federal money to Diamond for his business, unlike Obama and Clinton."

And this is relevant, why, exactly?

You are going to have to do a much better job of smearing Obama and Clinton than this, since this was just pathetic. And you're going to have to do a much better job defending McCain, since you really didn't even try, you just posted some rather mindless partisan drivel.

"It's the hypocrisy, stupid."

Some constituents are obviously more equal than others. The moral is big money talks and bigger money gets the whole caboodle.

I love it, SteveIL.

Who cares if McCain helped engineer a $30 million steal from the US government? It's OK, because he's a Republican.

That pretty much summarizes your 'argument'. Whenever anybody reports facts about McCain it is a smear.

You do remember ethics, right?

No, I don't believe he does.

I watched McCain on Stephenopolous on Sunday. As is usual for the right wing sales pitch he emphasized how he could cut taxes even further for the wealthy because he, Super John, was going to eliminate waste in government.

Aiding in the sale of Public Land to a contributor who gains a 11,900% return on the purchase is, among many other things, Government Waste. Everyone involved in that transaction knew the land was worth far more than the price it sold for. Public money was wasted and lost big time.

This should become a story that rivals Hillary's cattle futures trade. But don't hold your breath.

We are talking about prime California real estate at the height of the market. The sales price was $250,000. Within 2 years Diamond had sold the property for $20-30 million. I would like to know how Conservatives can defend the deal. Essentially what McCain did was aid and abed the theft of $20,000,000 to $30,000,000 from the taxpayers of the United States of America.

Look if Diamond had paid $10,000,000 and then done something to add value before selling it for $20,000,000 I wouldn't be outraged. This deal stinks because everybody from the Pentagon on down knew that Diamond was going to make a giant profit.

This deal demands a Congressional investigation.

Where's a LaFollete when you need one?

The more I learn about McCain from, say, Atrios or JMM or Yglesias or Keith O or Rachel Maddow, the more I find him despicable and disgusting.

Amen.

We should pound this stuff day and night. If we let this angry, senile, fork-tongued piece of garbage -- Lil' Bush -- wrap himself in the American flag, and permit MSM to come to his defense at every turn, we have only ourselves to blame.

I am still amazed at the number of dem friends and acquaintances who "respect" this clown. Every time he smirks and says, "My Friend," I would like to punch him in the face.

I voted for Bill Clinton twice, but I will NEVER forgive him and his desperate wife for publicly favoring McCain over our brightest rising star.

I can't even watch either of them now for more than 5 seconds. They are absolutely pathetic and despicable. They have NOTHING to offer America going forward.

Ron Byers,

What's the problem? Everyone knows that government is Evil, and what's wrong with stealing from Evil? And we don't want to hear this "taxpayers" stuff, because taxpayers are people and if you say this Evil property belongs to the People, you're dancing with Karl Marx and we won't have that. This is America.

(just tryin' to fill in for Al.)

"I want my money back, for Christ's sake. Do you know how many cocktail parties I have to go to?"

You want your money back??? From the looks of it, Diamond and McCain owe the American taxpayer something on the order of $27.5 million, which, I assume is what the government might have sold the land for at non-corrupt, non-backroom-deal market prices. Privatize gains, socialize losses, etc.

This situation is easy to rectify. Diamond and Mrs. McCain can each write out $15 million checks to the US government. It's such a small amount of money for them that neither one will be hurt.

This Diamond character may be brilliant and incredibly hard and abrasive but I bet he's pretty fragile and would crack under the right pressure.

It's unclear how well prepared Sen. McCain's campaign staff is prepared to deal with the press inquiries that lead to stories like this one.

As I know from personal experience, having a staff member write a letter or make phone call to get some importunate constituent off one's back is something all politicians do, even when campaign contributions or personal friendship aren't involved. Introducing legislation is not something all politicians do, but with respect to the land exchange bills McCain introduced he seems to have a defensible case, albeit one that would be harder to explain to people outside the West and its patchwork of federal and privately owned land. Either can look pretty bad if questions about it aren't foreseen and answers prepared beforehand.

McCain's campaign staff may well have thought they had the Times covered, having provided them with material that make it look as if Diamond asked for a lot more from McCain than he got. But Diamond appears as the kind of guy who asks every public official for more than he gets, so by having given him anything McCain comes off looking like everyone else.

It's a bad story, especially given a political environment that is much tougher on people who make a case for reform of various kinds without being saintly themselves than it is on people uninterested in reform. It is worse, obviously, because it is in The Times. As a story, this isn't anywhere near as damning of McCain as Michelle Cottle's TNR piece (linked on the left of Kevin's site) is of Sen. Clinton; the self-proclaimed candidate of experience and preparedness, Clinton comes off in the Cottle's telling as someone who isn't even in control of her own campaign.

But McCain won't be able to do with The Times' story what Sen. Obama could -- keep the press from asking him questions about it until they lose interest, or until there is another televised debate -- and how well he handles the questions he'll get in the next couple of weeks will say a lot about how well his campaign is prepared for the next six months.

If McCain did indeed help wealthy contributors procure lucrative land deals, why is it, then, that he is referred to as the "straight talker" and "champion of campaign finance reform"? Doesn't John have plenty of credibility in the bank on this issue?

Zathras,

You have missed a key fact about John McCain -- the mainstream corporate media is his base. I doubt there will be a word about this on CNN, ABC, or CBS. If there is the story won't be explained at all. A light brush and they will move on to some blond girl gone missing. Fox forget about it. Fox will actually adopt the argument thersites made tongue in cheek at 11:00. They will blame the New York Times for not being fair to their boy. Rachel Maddow might make a comment on MSNBC, but she will be shouted down by Chris Matthews or David Gregory.

John McCain has been getting away with this kind of stuff for years because John McCain is always available for a "candid" interview or a Sunday morning "exclusive." Haven't you heard John is a straight talker and a maverick, especially when talking straight and being a maverick doesn't cost him anything. He is always good for a quote.

Wolf, Tim and the rest are totally in the tank for McCain. He will weather this story. No problem.

this is a totally relevant, non-trivial issue about McCain in the same way the questions to Obama are relevant and non-trivial for a presidential candidate.

The answers speak to the essential nature of the candidates. They should be asked and answered, and factored into people's voting decisions. Let's see if and how McCain's response is different from the Obama soft-shoe.

We know he is corrupt from his support of the illegal aliens. I thought corruption was OK with liberals? No? Cafeteria corruption?

I've lived in Tucson for 35 years and agree with Walt's comment about how it used to be a more pleasant city in which to live. And yes, Don Diamond, along with a few other big developers, bears a responsibility for our current traffic problems.

My father lives in Prescott, AZ. Back in the 60s he and my mom (now deceased) bought some land in an area called Granite Dells, at that time 6 miles outside of Prescott. Don Diamond bought this land (40 acres) from them, intending to develop it and, of course, make a huge profit. Other people in the Dells, all small land owners, also sold their properties to Don.

Trouble is, this was before Granite Dells' time. So Don Diamond should have taken a bath on this. Nope. He defaulted, and left my parents and others who had sold small properties holding the bag. The land defaulted back to the original owners, who were also somehow forced to pay some sort of court fees because the Don had declared bankruptcy. In my folks case, $11,000. Not much money now, but back in those days, a lot of money. My folks were forced to sell the nice house they had in Prescott proper for a loss, and to move onto the Granite Dells property, because they couldn't afford to maintain two pieces of property.

My folks were naive to have dealt with Don Diamond, and they bear some responsibility. (My poor father, now 85 years old, STILL lacks a bullshit-o-meter and cannot recognize that guys like Diamond are bad news. He has a Rick Renzi bumper sticker on his SUV. His attorney was Dick Kleindienst.) But Don got away scott free. Sleazebag.

Kevin, you got hornswaggled by the Times. You read that transaction as Diamond having turned $250,000 into $30 million. Wrong! Read the next sentence, which says Diamond made $20 million on the deal. If he sold the "housing complex" for $30 million and made $20 million, then his cost was $10 million, no? The housing complex acquisition is mentioned on the third page of the story as the way Diamond got the inside track on the land deal, but somehow (purely by accident, I'm sure) the Times forgot to mention the purchase price on the housing complex. They blended the discussion of the two deals together and made it seem like the same deal, but they were completely separate transactions. So Diamond did not "snag the land for $250,000 and sell it two years later for $30 million".

Read closer, Brainster. It says that Diamond acknowledged a $20 million profit. Since Diamond probably subtracted 30% of the profit for taxes and whatever the minor costs were to arrange the sale and upkeep the property, not to mention the fact that he was just giving his own approximation, his figures line up fine with the NYT figures of paying $250,000 and selling for $30 million.

Good try, but McCain is still corrupt.

"I thought corruption was OK with liberals?" Luther, you thought wrong.

Why can't that be illegal?

Look, the Feds made 200K and he made 20m.

That's just not right.

I'd be mad if he made a 50% markup.

Annoyed at 25% markup, but hey, maybe the feds wouldn't have gotten that.

But a 5000% markup? WTF, man, that's not cool. That's looting.

Crissa, you're confused. If you break into a flooded supermarket and take a can of beans, that's looting. If you make a 5000% markup on property you bought from the government, that's free enterprise.