If McCain is brought down by all this, it won't be by the affair he doesn't actually appear to have had, but the favors for lobbyists that he most definitely appears to have done, and lied about. Worse for McCain, he let his hotheadedness and righteous indignation get the best of him and angrily declared he's never, ever done a favor for a lobbyist. Problem is, he's done favors for plenty of lobbyists, even the ones he specifically said he didn't do favors for, or even meet. The resulting contortions have already produced the best quote of the election, with McCain's superlawyer Bob Bennett saying, "We understood that he [McCain] did not speak directly with him [Paxson]. Now it appears he did speak to him. What is the difference?" Well, the difference between McCain saying he didn't meet with Paxson and him actually having met with Paxson is the macimal possible difference that can exist between two statements. It's the difference between yes and no, the difference between doing favors for lobbyists and not doing favors for them, the difference between McCain telling the truth, and lying. Indeed, the difference between those two statements may be the difference between McCain winning this election and losing it. The Times story is the beginning, not the end, of the investigations -- investigations McCain isn't used to enduring, doesn't have the temperament to bear gracefully, and whose results he's almost certainly contradicted with that maximalist statement of his own virutes.
