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The New York Times, wisely resisting implications of sexual impropriety, reports:
Donald R. Diamond, a wealthy Arizona real estate developer, was racing to snap up a stretch of virgin California coast freed by the closing of an Army base a decade ago when he turned to an old friend, Senator John McCain. When Mr. Diamond wanted to buy land at the base, Fort Ord, Mr. McCain assigned an aide who set up a meeting at the Pentagon and later stepped in again to help speed up the sale, according to people involved and a deposition Mr. Diamond gave for a related lawsuit. When he appealed to a nearby city for the right to develop other property at the former base, Mr. Diamond submitted Mr. McCain’s endorsement as ‘a close personal friend.[...]For Mr. McCain, the Arizona Republican who has staked two presidential campaigns on pledges to avoid even the appearance of dispensing an official favor for a donor, Mr. Diamond is the kind of friend who can pose a test. A longtime political patron, Mr. Diamond is one of the elite fund-raisers Mr. McCain’s current presidential campaign calls Innovators, having raised more than $250,000 so far.That stretch of land is in California's Big Sur, among the most gorgeous stretches of coastline in the country. Lucky for us, McCain helped Diamond build on it. This sort of thing is, I guess, de rigeur among politicians. The difference here is that McCain's whole political persona is based around idea that McCain is the one politician who doesn't do this sort of thing. But if you take the favors he did for Eisman, his relationship with Charles Keating, and his intercessions on behalf of Diamond, what you find is that McCain is very good at taking bold, media-friendly stands against the projects he doesn't like and the personal pursued by other Senators, but not so good at resisting these temptations himself.
