Why John McCain Owes The New York Times a Thank You Card
The Republican Right is already howling over the bombshell dropped by The New York Times on John McCain, the GOP's all-but-official nominee. It's an outrage, they say. A deliberate torpedo. A liberal media smear.
Sorry, but these guys have got it backwards. The Times, in fact, couldn't have found a moment more favorable for Johnny Mack to let this fearsome cat out of the bag. If McCain could have personally chosen when to have this story break, it would have been right about now.
Not to say that the well-researched piece that broke late Wednesday evening isn't any candidate's nightmare. It's not only a detailed run-down of McCain's awfully close friendship with a pert and well-connected lobbyist thirty years his junior; the Times also does an admirable job of rehashing the Senator's long record of cozying up to the same sort of lobbyists against whom he repeatedly rails in public.
So what's my beef? The timing, folks. The timing. Everyone who knows anyone has been hearing about this story for some months. Back in December, Matt Drudge got wind of it from inside the Times and teased it at the top of his site. We all waited, but the shoe never dropped.
Under what is said to be intense pressure from McCain and prominent D.C. criminal attorney Robert Bennett, who was hired to help deal with the matter, the Times capitulated and held off on publishing the story - offering no explanation, then or now. And if you read through the piece just published, there doesn't seem to be any new information that the Times couldn't have had two months ago.
So what, you ask? Just one small detail: In the intervening weeks between the moment when the Times was first going to publish the story and finally did publish the story, the same New York Times endorsed John McCain! And while he's described in the endorsement editorial as a "staunch advocate of campaign finance reform" he's tagged in this Wednesday's news piece as having accepted favors from those with matters that came before the very committee he used to push that reform. And many, many other favors.
More importantly, if the Times had published its expose when it first had it over Christmas, it would have preceded all of the Republican primaries and caucuses. To say it would have changed the dynamic of the GOP race is perhaps the understatement of the decade. You can bet Mitt Romney and even Mayor Rudy are up late tonight gnashing their teeth and pounding their heads against the wall over this one.
So should Republican voters. They've been seriously toyed with by the paper of record. The Times gives them McCain. And then, only after it's too late to reconsider, it takes him away. McCain might, indeed, be seriously wounded by this week's revelations. If they had come out two months ago, he would have been reduced to a political asterisk, a footnote alongside Tommy Thompson and Tommy Tancredo.
Yes, we know how the Times will plead: innocent. There's a clear division, you see, between the news side and the editorial pages of the paper. Tut tut.
More like a clear division between the real and the surreal.
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WE ARE SO LUCKY THAT NO ONE HAS YET INVENTED A "TIME MACHINE". CAN YOU IMAGINE SOMEONE GOING BACK IN TIME TO OUR CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION AND DISPLAYING A COPY OF THE NEW YORK TIMES TO OUR FOUNDING FATHERS. WHAT A RUSH THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN TO DELETE ALL REFERENCE TO THAT THAT "..FREEDOM OF THE PRESS" STUFF.
Non issue for MCcain. People forget this before Nov elections. Look at the real story, how the two candidates fare in their debates, their policies. Cut this crap of finding skeletons in the closets.
I suspect right wingers for leaking this to the NY Times. There are still many of the ultra right who hate McCain. They would be in the know about the lobbyist not Democrats. The rightwing Drudge report first put this out in Dec. Besides, McCain is so beatable by either Clinton or Obama that the Ds have no reason to get into this messy business.
I assumed that when Rush Limbaugh came out switching his statements about what an impure conservative McCain is to how wonderful McCain is after the NYT article ran, it was just a big put up job (best quick spin) designed to get the conservatives behind a man that most classic conservatives don't respect and won't support. And the beneficiary? Why, the Repugs, of course. I don't see this as working as a strategy - the damage is already done.
McCain's worst enemy is himself: he is rumored to have a nasty temper, but lately, when he addresses crowds, he literally almost puts everyone to sleep - zzzzzzzzzz!!!!!!!!! He practically whispers in a monotone and what's with wife #2 - she looks like she just had a Tammy Fay makeover (or Glamor Shots). We all know that McCain is surrounded by old establishment Pugs and lobbyists and he would have us in a war everywhere simultaneously.
Newsflash: I hope you've traveled as much as you want to in this life because thanks to the Bush/Cheney /McCain/Lieberman types, you're not welcome anywhere anymore - Europe, Asia, Middle East, Central and South America, Mexico, the list goes on and on. No matter what happens anywhere anymore, it is blamed on Americans. Does McCain strike you as one who believes in public relations or mending fences. Huh uh!
Laughable. I travel all over the world on business. Your addled perception that Americans are unwelcome in all those places expose your ignorance. Do you even HAVE a passport?
Speaking of loose with facts, Rush Limbaugh came out switching his statements? That's baldly false. His show is a matter of record, but obviously you're ignorant of that as well.
The list goes on and on ... give me a break. I'll have a nice laugh about that in New Delhi and Brussels this year.
They want to do a "Dan Rather" on the NYT...BUTT YA' CAN'T GET A NEWSPAPER FIRED(RIGHT?)
The Times blew this one for sure. The interesting thing is that when the electorate looks at the family values thing, the Obamas will project the loving, caring, family image that America will respond to. Michelle will be forgiven for the "proudest moment" rookie comment when they hear what a straight family man Barack is. hat a great role model for all Americans. Obama could become the beneficiary of the honorable statesman and husband factor. Despite her first mistake, Michelle should be unleashed on the American public. She's super smart and has already learned about the national spotlight. (Part of the primary process). She could be the best thing since the "Nancy Reagan loving wife" stare.
Actually I believe this was a case of reverse "swiftboating". Just like the Dan Rather thing about Bush's Guard service.
This whole thing was probably contrived and released by the McCain camp to totally discredit and embarass the Times so that in the days to come and until the election nothing printed in the NY Times will be taken seriously.
It will probably be proven to be totally bogus and the sources will change their stories. You would think the media people would be a little wiser after the Dan Rather fiasco.
I think you give McCain too much credit. As my senator since Goldwater stepped down, I have yet to see any indication of anything other than average intelligence.
This smells like Rove. Throw McCain under the bus. Why? He is not 'conservative' enough. There are no Karl Goebbels Rove dogs in this fight and he can set up for 20012. Policies and practices left by Bush 43 will cause ripples (Hell... tsunamis..
Big Picture, Rove-Style:
Get Hillary elected. That way the warmongers get a good chunk of what they want, if not all, and their (allegedly) most-hated opponent and Democratic Party get blamed. 2012 becomes a shoo-in for whatever neoconartist the NYTimes and CFR prop up. smooooothe
There is only one certainty about your forthcoming election America, and that is: Democracy will not win.
So it's a plot to preserve McCain? Please. Well, it worked for Arnold.
So it's a plot to preserve McCain? Please. Well, it worked for Arnold.
very strange echo in here....
For those of you wanting to ban the lobbyists I might remind you that they are protected in the constitution ""the right of the people...t
If the NY Times wanted to get McCain, they would have taken his claim that the Surge is working and asked him, "To what extent is the drop in violence due to Moqtada al-Sadr's ceasefire? Did the Surge make him take responsibility for his actions, did he coincidentally grow up, or is he merely biding his time?"
Sex scandal or no, Sen. Bomb Bomb Iran wouldn't be doing nearly as well if the media hasn't bent over backwards to hide his warmongering.
You state that "...if you read through the piece just published, there doesn't seem to be any new information that the Times couldn't have had two months ago."
True indeed. But, they printed something!
The information is old, yet, an important reminder. What has taken the media so long to present McCain's full history, Lobbiest tryst/straw-woman for voter consideration.
Obviously, we have one or the other issue; an affair or covert lobbiest dealing. Homegirl was not hanging out with ol'ass McCain because of his cuddly personality. "Let's get Real!"
Why should we not consider McCain's pattern of mis-judgment, e.g., closeness to the Keating 5 issues and whats-her-
NYT publishing was fair timing. It did not defame McCain; he presented himself for the Presidency and his credibility and ethos must be examined. NYT used its judgment to print at an interlude in the primary contests and before McCain gained, officially, a full nomination.
Don't blame the Times...Wh
McCain's lobbyist friend was a graduate from a teaching university who went from a secretary to partner in eight years. She was/is obviously ambitious and undoubtedly saw a relationship with McCain, whatever that relationship may have been, as a means of moving up the food chain. If McCain allowed himself to be used, however innocently, it shows remarkably poor judgment for a Senator chairing a committee overseeing industries his friend represented. McCain is far from perfect and it is about time his free media ride as a maverick ended. I hope the media roasts his sorry ass over a slow fire.
McCain is a politician so his judgment is definitely flawed. I'm not even sure why this is a story. The media has failed America the last 30 years. Too freaking lazy to do any work! There is no proof that he BANGed the lobbyist and so what if he did? Sure, if we threw out everyone that BANGed someone outside their marriage, took drugs and took gifts from lobbyists, then we would have a better government. I'm not sure if I want to know who is BANGing who in DC.
Glad someone else remembers all the favors the "Keating 5" did for Lincoln Savings and Loan, and the direct cost to thousands of individual American families (elderly mostly) and all of us economically. (Think: Societé Generale +++) by virtue of the bailout.
The Keating Lincoln Savings scandal was full of lessons. Like, Sen. Alan Cranston was smarter than Sen. John McCain (no dummy to be sure). While McCain did the most for Keating and received the least, Cranston garnered the most and did the least. Maybe we're not Italy (where the Mafia all but ran a string of political parties from Fascist, centrist, Liberal to Communist), but the corruption of American democracy runs effortlessly over ideological fences. Each time we turn a blind eye we pay later. McCain has lots of guts, but lacks integrity. BTW for me, this isn't about sex or dating, which is none of my business, it's about political hypocrisy. The NY Times included.
New York Times laid off another 100 Newsroom employees last week. Looks as if they have hired Perez Hilton as a syndicated political columnist.
As long as he didn't return the favor through some kind of legislation, a vote on some kind of legislation, or a job, who cares who's "lobbying" him? There's a thing called consenting adults.
The main concern with McCain is that we will have more war, more spending, bigger government, more illegal immigration, amnesty to the illegals already here, a foreign policy that will continue to create hatred towards this country, and the same amount, if not more, taxation. In short, we will have everything that the Republican party is supposed to be against.
The main concern with what we may think of as a perceived impropriety is that voters can never know what occurred, which is why politicians hiding behind statements claiming they did nothing illegal is rather specious. A politician must make every effort to not merely act in a manner consistent with the law but s/he must not act in a manner that could be perceived as legal. McCain compromised himself this lobbyist and that's why his campaign staff sought to separate the two. Did McCain do anything improper? Anyone care to put McCain under oath along with the lobbyist and members of his campaign staff just to see where the chips fall?
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