The McCain/Obama Tick-Tock

So why was Sen. John McCain so outraged?

It is admittedly hard to tell from Sen. Barack Obama's first letter, which seems polite.

In response to Obama's overtures about working with McCain, McCain asked Obama to join him at a meeting last Wed. with the chair and ranking member of the Senate Govt Affairs Cmte, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT).

Obama aide Robert Gibbs said Obama sought assurances in the meeting that ethics legislation would not bypass the cmte process.

McCain left the meeting impressed that Obama, the Dem' party's designee to lead reform efforts, was open to the idea of a bipartisan task force charged with recommending reforms to the committee by the end of 2/06.

A McCain adviser said McCain "received private assurances" from Obama that he would consider supporting a task force. Gibbs denies Obama ever intended to convey anything beyond his desire for legislation to be hashed out in cmte, and not through a task force that would circumvent the cmte process, as had been suggested by Maj. Leader Bill Frist (R-TN).

Both Senators' staffs agree Obama and McCain chatted amicably post-meeting.

The next day, Obama wrote McCain that he preferred his own party's legislation to a task force and suggested McCain take another look at the Dems' Honest Leadership Act.

"Next thing we know," a McCain adviser said, "[Obama] releases the letter to the press before sending it to McCain, insinuating McCain and others wanted to slow-go lobbying reform."

Gibbs said an Obama staffer informed McCain staffer about the letter, well before the letter was given to the press in the late afternoon on 2/3.

A McCain aide said that press calls alerted them to the letter early that morning, as McCain was on his way to security conference in Munich.

Three aides said McCain was astonished when he read the letter. His task force would be pressed to recommend solutions by the end of 2/06, probably before any legislation would emerge from the several Senate cmtes who have jurisdiction over lobbying and ethics and govt affairs. The leg. would then be referred to the govt. affairs cmte.

Obama, in his response letter to McCain, insists he told McCain and other Senators at the 2/1 meeting that "my caucus insisted that the consideration of any ethics reform proposal go through the regular committee process." That was, according to a McCain aide, a bizarre way to respond to a meeting involving the chair and ranking member of the cmte that would indeed mark-up leg stemming from the bipartisan task force.

Said the aide: "There was no discussion of bypassing the committee process at all. Susan Collins and Joe Lieberman were there. They're trying to be part of the process." Gibbs said that "When Obama brought up the caucus position that he believed and the Democrat caucus believe that what Sen. Frist initially proposed was a task force that circumvent the committee process, no one including Sen. McCain objected. If we didn't think discussion in a bipartisan way among senators wasn't productive, we would not have rearranged our schedule to attend the meeting."

An aide to McCain said he was offended by what he saw as Obama's insinuation that McCain, who first proposed bipartisan reform leg. in '05, wanted to eschew the cmte process and was by implication a partisan. Said another McCain adviser: "Don't blame your decision to stick with your leadership on those who are trying to do something in a bipartisan way."[MARC AMBINDER]