NY Times helps McCain

February 25th, 2008 at 10:42 am by David Farrar

The NY Times recently ran an article alleging John McCain had an affair with a lobbyist around 10 years ago. They had no proof for the article, and not a single on the record source.

The story has been criticised widely, and now even by the paper’s own ombudsman.

Ironically it has served to unite the conservative base around McCain. Previous conservative critics are now rallying to support him due to fury over the NY Times story – especially its timing. The NY Times has had the story for months and months and by waiting until McCain was the presumptive nominee, their motives appear to be purely to damage the Republican Party – otherwise they would have run it earlier on before he was the presumptive nominee.

Tags: John McCain, media bias, New York Times, United States

This entry was posted on Monday, February 25th, 2008 at 10:42 am and is filed under United States. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

14 Responses to “NY Times helps McCain”

Lindsay Addie (1,050) Says:
February 25th, 2008 at 10:48 am
Ultra leftie Ralph Nader may to be helping McCain as he has joined the race
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pushmepullu (686) Says:
February 25th, 2008 at 11:12 am
More gutter politics by the Democrats. If we consider the filthy tactics they employed against Bush I see no reason not to expect more of the same smearing. Good thing the American people (most!) are too smart to fall for that.
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david c (254) Says:
February 25th, 2008 at 11:38 am
“If we consider the filthy tactics they employed against Bush ”

Exactly what election did you watch Pushmepullu??? Swiftboat?! Stealing the election in Florida?!! Who employed dirty tactics?
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TJCO (59) Says:
February 25th, 2008 at 11:45 am
“Stealing the election in Florida” lol. You lefties ever going to get over the fact that you lost in Florida fair and square?
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pushmepullu (686) Says:
February 25th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
David, drawing attention to John Kerry’s poor service record in Vietnam is legitimate. Accusing Bush of abandoning his post while serving in the Air National Guard is not.
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PaulL (5,235) Says:
February 25th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
david c: It’s American politics. There was plenty of negative campaigning on both sides. Remember the forged Bush letter from Dan Rather? NY Times is just an extension of that same attitude. I guess who you think did more of it and the more egregious incidents might depend on your politics, I thought that the left side ran some pretty low tricks. And if the election was stolen in Florida, then NZ’s last election was stolen with the pledge card. About the same amount of fact to it.
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RRM (7,430) Says:
February 25th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
The yanks love a good ol’ boy. Bill Clinton’s “I did not have sexual relations with that woman [wink wink]” sideshow was the best bit of publicity anyone ever gave him. Similarly any story about McCain (or any of the rest of them) being a bit of a shagger is bound to rope in a bit of enthusiasm and support from the sort of people who just want a bit of a sign that their politicians are real human beings…
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david c (254) Says:
February 25th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
“drawing attention to John Kerry’s poor service record in Vietnam is legitimate”

You didn’t really read the press about this didja chief? It was all bollocks. Kerry did not have a poor service record. He had an exemplary one. And at least he had one huh? Didn’t shirk his responsibilities. Count his purple hearts versus Bush’s decorations…don’t really match up. And that’s just one award.

I’d think before you go shooting your mouth off.
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pushmepullu (686) Says:
February 25th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
David, I’m thinking just fine. Maybe you should do a bit of reading beyond the Kerry campaign’s briefing notes.
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PhilBest (5,089) Says:
February 25th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
What a pity we don’t have sufficient balance in our media institutions in NZ, to ensure that a “mainstream” paper or program doesn’t get away with this sort of bias……..
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berend (1,423) Says:
February 25th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
You forgot to mention that they sat on this story while endorsing McCain a while ago. Talk about hypocritical.
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Craig Ranapia (1,912) Says:
February 25th, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Berend wrote:

You forgot to mention that they sat on this story while endorsing McCain a while ago. Talk about hypocritical.

Very interesting backgrounder by The New Republic’s Gabriel Sherman that suggests the story was sat on for so long because New York Times’ own executive editor Bill Keller was unconvinced it was solid.

Money quote:

Beyond its revelations, however, what’s most remarkable about the article is that it appeared in the paper at all: The new information it reveals focuses on the private matters of the candidate, and relies entirely on the anecdotal evidence of McCain’s former staffers to justify the piece–both personal and anecdotal elements unusual in the Gray Lady. The story is filled with awkward journalistic moves–the piece contains a collection of decade-old stories about McCain and Iseman appearing at functions together and concerns voiced by McCain’s aides that the Senator shouldn’t be seen in public with Iseman–and departs from the Times’ usual authoritative voice. At one point, the piece suggestively states: “In 1999 she began showing up so frequently in his offices and at campaign events that staff members took notice. One recalled asking, ‘Why is she always around?’” In the absence of concrete, printable proof that McCain and Iseman were an item, the piece delicately steps around purported romance and instead reports on the debate within the McCain campaign about the alleged affair.

What happened? The publication of the article capped three months of intense internal deliberations at the Times over whether to publish the negative piece and its most explosive charge about the affair. It pitted the reporters investigating the story, who believed they had nailed it, against executive editor Bill Keller, who believed they hadn’t. It likely cost the paper one investigative reporter, who decided to leave in frustration. And the Times ended up publishing a piece in which the institutional tensions about just what the story should be are palpable.

Source: http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=8b7675e4-36de-43f5-afdd-2a2cd2b96a24

Examining McCain’s links to lobbyists is a perfectly legitimate story, but even credible Dem/left-wing bloggers I read regularly were unconvinced this was that story. Looks like a Gotcha! gone bad.
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Alces (310) Says:
February 25th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
It gets better.

A Fisking, comrade vs comrade.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/02/24/1203788136184.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
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kiwi in america (1,931) Says:
February 25th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Turns out the NY Times own Ombudsman thinks his own newspaper’s hitpiece on McCain stinks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/24/opinion/24pubed.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all

Even the Times own reporters seem to be airbrushing their previous enthusiam for a salacious sexual encounter from new reporting with the innocuous word “ties”. McCain gave the Times chapter and verse on the various legislative decisions he made AGAINST the lobbyist in question which of course was ignored as not fitting their anti-McCain meme.

The NYT seem to have achieved the impossible – uniting the conservative commentariat around a candidate that many were suspicious and even critical of.
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