John McCain's non-rebuttal

The McCain campaign has issued an amusing attempt at flaccid rebuttal to a report that appeared in the New York Times yesterday.

Read carefully:

As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis separated from his consulting firm, Davis Manafort, in 2006. As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis has seen no income from Davis Manafort since 2006. Zero. Mr. Davis has received no salary or compensation since 2006. Mr. Davis has received no profit or partner distributions from that firm on any basis — weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual — since 2006. Again, zero. Neither has Mr. Davis received any equity in the firm based on profits derived since his financial separation from Davis Manafort in 2006.

Yes, we know that, and the Times never suggested otherwise.

What the Times (and Newsweek) did report, however, is that Rick Davis's company had been receiving a monthly $15,000 stipend — that Davis himself "negotiated" — right up until last month.

The McCain camp has not denied any of that, and it's pretty clear that Davis Manafort has been receiving the payments based solely on Rick Davis's close association with John McCain, candidate for president. Davis himself admits that he did nothing else in support of their receipt. And nobody in their right mind believes these were charitable donations made with no expectations of some result.

That Davis has since separated himself from his own company and its equity on paper in the meantime is not particularly relevant. Unless Davis is not planning on reuniting himself with his own firm and its equity at some point in the future, the McCain campaign's objections to the Times' reporting are considerably less than potent.

The hundreds of thousands of accumulated greenbacks are sitting there waiting for Rick Davis just as soon as he resumes his association with Davis Manafort. It was John McCain who decided to make this an issue in the first place, continued on with it by daring reporters to look deeper, and now he's reaping his own rewards.

This is a campaign in serious disarray, reduced to sophomoric feuding with a single newspaper and photo ops with Irish pop stars.