Professor Bainbridge...on law, politics, religion, culture & food

McCain versus the NY Times

The NY Times:

Early in Senator John McCain’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers. A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.

In some respects, the piece is pretty shoddy journalism. Unable to come up with any evidence of a romantic relationship, the Times relies on innnuendo. The piece relies exclusively on anonymous sources for the key allegations. The piece also mainly rehashes all the old charges against McCain’s ego blinding him to conflicts of interest rather than offering anything new except for the titillation factor.

On the other hand, McCain’s ego does blind him to conflicts of interest. See my 3/05 post, Saint John’s Halo Slips. McCain did divorce his first wife and then got remarried to a younger, richer trophy wife. There have been rumors for years of womanizing on McCain’s part.

So what are we to make of all this?

The best line so far comes from Philip Klinkner (HT: Taylor):

There’s only one man in America madder at the New York Times than John McCain--Mitt Romney.

Indeed:

ABC News’ John Berman Reports: The remnants of the Romney campaign are shaking their heads this morning.

For months they were whispering about a New York Times investigation into John McCain’s ties to a certain lobbyist.

They would poke and prod reporters to see if they had heard anything new about when and if the New York Times would publish the story.

On Thursday, while no one would allow their name to be published, several former advisers lamented the timing of the story, one suggesting, “If this piece had run before New Hampshire, McCain would have lost. If it had run before Florida, he would have lost.”

Taylor also offers some thoughts of his own:

Given that key portions of McCain’s appeal are supposed to be his character and his anti-corruption stances, this story has the potential to be quite damaging, especially if he ends up facing off against Obama, who has a visible, and seemingly quite stable, marriage and is running against lobbyists. Also, this raises the whole Keating Five business, which mostly has been relegated to the past.

Ed Morrissey notes McCain’s categorical denial and opines:

Will this hurt McCain? Not at all. First, this is even older than the smear job the Times did on Rudy Giuliani last year. Second, they don’t have a single named source for this story. Third, the Times left out numerous examples where McCain acted against the interests of Iseman and her clients. The effect is likely going to produce more support for McCain among the GOP base, especially given the egregious and salacious nature of the controversy.

I’m not sure that’s right. The social conservatives in the base already have problems with McCain. Don’t you think that someday that part of the base is going to get tired of the “values” party being led by divorced womanizers?

James Joyner:

Nine years ago, aides were concerned that there might be an appearance of impropriety and sought to distance a candidate running on the need to reform lobbying from a lobbyist. Why is this front page news in the most important paper in the country?

When did the Times start this “investigation”? Clearly, they haven’t finished it since they have nothing here beyond allegation. Yet they’ve given it the most prominent space in the paper. But when did they start? Since all this happened during McCain’s last presidential campaign — which famously had flocks of reporters tagging along on the bus the whole way — didn’t they have some inkling of all this then. For that matter, were they working on the story when they endorsed McCain for the nomination only three weeks ago?

Noam Scheiber suggests that the Times has been sitting on the story for a while and was forced to run this now because a competing New Republic story on the infighting in McCain’s 2000 campaign was about to be published. Josh Marshall, who ironically was working on a piece about how the media never scrutinizes McCain, says the Times was working on this in December and McCain’s folks initiated legal action to stop it. Matt Drudge also had rumors about such a story in late December. ...

The Times ownership and editorial board is left-of-center and will certainly endorse the Democratic nominee in the fall. But John Hinderaker’s assertion that “The Times is a mouthpiece for the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, nothing more” and that “no sophisticated person takes the Times seriously as a news source” is unfair and untrue. With rather rare exception, they provide fair and honest reporting. This one, though, is simply bizarre. And the juxtaposition with a giant picture of a joyous Barack Obama is surreal.

Joyner’s long post has tons of good links.

Roger L. Simon‘s post offers a different take on the Times than Joyner’s overall assessment:

Shaquille O’Neal still appeared to have some life in him last night - though not enough - but it is the New York Times that is now enacting the roll of “pitiful helpless giant,” struggling to be relevant in a new era in its curiously timed McCain attack, for which they may have been prodded by The New Republic, of all tawdry institutions.

Years ago, when one read something in The Times you thought, oh, this must be true. Now, you think - what’s the latest garbage? How times have changed! [That may be the worst pun of the year.-ed. It’s still early.] The whole thing has a comic dimension. A newspaper accusing some guy of having an improper relationship with a woman… or maybe not… is on the edge of opera bouffe, considering the behind the scenes activities of the newspaper’s own staff, from editor and publisher on down. Oh, but I forgot… We’re talking about politicians here. We hold them to a different standard than ourselves.

Greg Sargent spots a double standard:

Let’s take the meat of the big New York Times story and substitute the words “Dem Presidential Hopeful” for “John McCain” ... If these words had appeared on the front page of The New York Times, wouldn’t we all be yelling and stamping our feet about “panty sniffing” and condemning the use of anonymous sources who suggest a possible affair that may or may not have happened and wasn’t directly alleged by anyone?