The hits keep on coming for John McCain since the NY Times broke the lobbyist scandal. For a man who rails against them, he certainly counts many as he friends. During his presser yesterday he even admitted that Ms. Iseman, the gal that is linked as the "it girl' in the Times story is a "friend."

Now the Washington Post follows that up with this:

In McCain's case, the fact that lobbyists are essentially running his presidential campaign -- most of them as volunteers -- seems to some people to be at odds with his anti-lobbying rhetoric. "He has a closer relationship with lobbyists than he lets on," said Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "The problem for McCain being so closely associated with lobbyists is that he's the candidate most closely associated with attacking lobbyists."

Public Citizen, a group that monitors campaign fundraising, has found that McCain had more bundlers -- people who gather checks from networks of friends and associates -- from the lobbying community than any other presidential candidate from either party. By the group's current count, McCain had at least 59 federal lobbyists raising money for his campaign, compared with 33 working for Republican Rudolph W. Giuliani and 19 working for Democrat Clinton..read on

That's a heck of a lot of lobbyist "friends." And why would he have have so many lobbyist friends? I mean, their job is to make friends in high places that can help them get deals for their clients. What would his motivation be? I'm sure he has plenty of friends in his life, including his family. And how many lobbyists did Obama have in the piece?

Barack Obama has been advised by former senator Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), who is not a registered lobbyist but advises clients about Washington.

Stretch, much? I can envision another campaign slogan for Obama....Oh, yea---it's coming...write a few in the thread below.

UPDATE: Glenn notes that Newsweek has caught McCain in a serious credibility-undermining contradiction:

[W]hat is not old is McCain's deliberately dishonest claims in response to that story. Denying that he ever spoke with Paxson's CEO when he testified under oath that he did -- and then misleadingly claiming that he was using the royal "I" and meant only that his staff spoke with Paxson -- is clear and deliberate deceit.