Wampum

And most likely, criminal.

First, a bit of a recap.

Back in 2004, despite NOT being the chairman of the committee, John McCain took control of the investigation on Senate Indian Affairs into Jack Abramoff's purchase of influence over Interior Department officials for his lobbying clients. In fact, McCain's announcement of opening the investigation sent then Chairman Ben Nighthorse Campbell into the emergency room with chest pains. See, Campbell knew Abramoff was key in a whole host of Republican scandals, and even scratching the surface was likely to send more than a few corrupt GOP partisans to jail. A few days after his heart-attack scare (turned out to be indigestion,) Campbell announced his retirement from the Senate. McCain, however, undaunted by his colleague's concerns, pressed ahead and subpeonaed nearly 20,000 emails and documents from Greenberg Traurig, Abramoff's lobbying firm. Abramoff, it turns out, was one of the Bush operatives behind the 2000 South Carolina smear campaign against McCain, and McCain has always been known to hold a grudge. It would take some mighty exceptional reparations to mitigate the sting of the 2000 campaign, and McCain soon found he held all the chips.

Less than two months after subpoenaing Abramoff's documents, and in the midst of George Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, McCain's chief adviser, John Weaver, met secretly with Karl Rove to "iron out their differences." McCain was apparently pleased enough with the negotiations to hit the campaign trail with Bush in June, a month after the Weaver-Rove meeting. At the same time, McCain began to quash the investigation into Abramoff in the Senate Indian Affairs committee. Within a few months, rumors abound that McCain was now Bush's chosen successor for 2008.

But even the title of heir apparent didn't completely wash away of the pain of 2000, especially when McCain realized that his long-time nemesis, Grover Norquist, was Abramoff's partner-in-crime. After the November election, McCain turned up the heat on Norquist, threatening him with subpoenas for documents and testimony before the Committee. Norquist just thumbed his nose at McCain, and in the end, must have held too many aces in his pocket, as McCain never called him before the committee, despite very damning evidence of criminal activity.

But it now appears the ever-defiant Norquist succumbed to extortion as well. This morning, I came across this tidbit buried in a NY Times piece on McCain:

Since his victory in the Florida primary, the growing possibility that Mr. McCain may carry the Republican banner in November is causing anguish to the right. Some, including James C. Dobson and Rush Limbaugh, say it is far too late for forgiveness.

But others, faced with the prospect of either a Democrat sitting in the White House or a Republican elected without them, are beginning to look at Mr. McCain's record in a new light.

"He has moved in the right direction strongly and forcefully on taxes," said Grover Norquist, an antitax organizer who had been the informal leader of conservatives against a McCain nomination, adding that he had been talking to Mr. McCain's "tax guys" for more than a year.

The conversion is complete. John McCain subverted justice to gain the crown. Long live the king.

(NB: Here is the longer version I wrote back in 2006, when I first discovered the Weaver-Rove meeting, incorporated into the larger issue of the Indian Trust scandal.)