John McCain's Truth-Speaking Real Estate Mogul Buddy

22.04.2008

This obviously isn't 100 percent related to Topic A, but the piece in today's Times about John McCain's real estate developer crony is really terrific stuff. Not just because it brings McCain's "honor, duty, country" self-image into relief*, but because the crony, Donald R. Diamond, is such a cartoonishly delicious character. My favorite passage:

Mr. Diamond, for his part, said Mr. McCain had only done his job. “I think that is what Congress people are supposed to do for constituents,” he said. “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.”

The man speaks the truth.

Oh, and speaking of speaking the truth, this passage finished a close second:

Mr. Diamond is close to most of Arizona’s Congressional delegation and is candid about his expectations as a fund-raiser. “I want my money back, for Christ’s sake. Do you know how many cocktail parties I have to go to?”

How refreshing to have a fat-cat contributor actually fess up about the blindingly obvious point of all his contributions.

*For what it's worth, McCain's relationship with Diamond is scandalous in my mind, but no more so than relationships 80-90 percent of senators probably have with their top contributors. What separates McCain, as the piece suggests, is that he's much more sanctimonious than at least 80-90 percent of his colleagues, and probably more.

--Noam Scheiber

Posted: Tuesday, April 22, 2008 2:43 PM with 5 comment(s)

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WoodyBombay said:

Seriously, the Treasury Department should do away with "In God We Trust" and put Diamond's quote on all our money.

April 22, 2008 2:50 PM

tec619 said:

Diamond obtained a parcel of federal property for $250K and two years later sold it for 11,900 percent the purchase price? Big deal. A genuine Republican, say Don Young (R-AK) would have gotten Diamond the property for half that price, and secured a tax credit for the at least 70 percent of the purchase price. Now that would be a win-win for the taxpayers. McCain again falls short of executing the GOP's privatize profit, socialize cost dogma.

April 22, 2008 3:08 PM

adaglas said:

If we're gonna do that Woody, can we get them to make an exception for the 20, so it says "Twenty dollars can buy many peanuts"?

April 22, 2008 3:21 PM

jacobt1 said:

Who cares? I Obama is not going to be in the position to talk about McCain real estate developer crony .

At lease this guy is not in jail.

April 22, 2008 3:44 PM

AlanSP said:

That last comment by Diamond is actually pretty stupid on his part. You don't publicly announce wink-nod arrangements, since quid pro quo arrangements, aside from making the the public official look bad, are illegal. That's not to say that people don't do it, but most aren't dumb enough to publicly admit to it. Look at what happened to Don Siegelman; yes, his case was a witch hunt, but it's things like that that make people far more careful about what they say than Diamond was.

April 22, 2008 4:26 PM