The NYT smearing of John McCain

[kinggovernor]

Can't believe there isn't a thread yet but I am wondering what everything thinks about it. IMO the NYT became the National Enquirer for the day and ran an awful story.

[JaJae]

It's interesting that they chose to release their story on this now despite not having a source and despite not even having an anonymous source making any allegations. They're giving you bits and pieces and wanting you to draw your own conclusions nine years later... It's definitely strange. I heard one of the writers actually quit the NY Times because he wanted the story published months ago, but they refused to release it until now. I wonder what they were waiting for, it's not like they got any facts.

[motivez]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

Can't believe there isn't a thread yet but I am wondering what everything thinks about it. IMO the NYT became the National Enquirer for the day and ran an awful story.

I can't say I find your position (as a supporter of John McCain) all that surprising tbh.. it isn't exactly an impartial one

Mine isn't either of course, since I don't particularly care for him after seeing him chuck every one of his core beliefs over the last few years (most recently being against torture) in his bid to secure this nomination.. so it certainly wouldn't surprise me to learn that hey, he's just like most other Senators who allow lobbyists to influence their policy decisions.

But I'm not going to dismiss it out of hand as a 'smear', which I expect will be the typical response of McCainites..

We'll see what comes of it, certainly aside from allegations of the relationship (which I don't really care about), there were some pretty interesting things about how he allowed a lobbyist to influence him to make policy decisions.. which completely negates his image as some sort of 'reformer'..

Apparently the Washington Post had a similar story, but hit a dead end until the NYT posted theirs.. and sources had become more willing to talk (including, apparently, some in his campaign)

Downie: 'Wash Post' McCain Story Helped By 'NYT' Story
McCain's Ties To Lobbyist Worried Aides

[JaJae]

motz from your link:

Downie added that the Post had been reporting on the relationship between the presidential candidates and lobbyists for months, including three previous stories on McCain's ties to lobbyists. None of the previous McCain stories, however, included Iseman.

His ties to lobbyists seems to be their story, not an indecent relationship with Iseman. I'm up for a McCain scandal as much as the next guy, but I think before you make such strong allegations you should some evidence before publishing. The Times included none.

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by motivez

I can't say I find your position (as a supporter of John McCain) all that surprising tbh.. it isn't exactly an impartial one

Mine isn't either of course, since I don't particularly care for him after seeing him chuck every one of his core beliefs over the last few years (most recently being against torture) in his bid to secure this nomination.. so it certainly wouldn't surprise me to learn that hey, he's just like most other Senators who allow lobbyists to influence their policy decisions.

But I'm not going to dismiss it out of hand as a 'smear', which I expect will be the typical response of McCainites..

We'll see what comes of it, certainly aside from allegations of the relationship (which I don't really care about), there were some pretty interesting things about how he allowed a lobbyist to influence him to make policy decisions.. which completely negates his image as some sort of 'reformer'..

Apparently the Washington Post had a similar story, but hit a dead end until the NYT posted theirs.. and sources had become more willing to talk (including, apparently, some in his campaign)

Downie: 'Wash Post' McCain Story Helped By 'NYT' Story
McCain's Ties To Lobbyist Worried Aides

All the rumors unfit to print

By Jay Ambrose | Friday, February 22, 2008 | Home - BostonHerald.com | Op-Ed
One of the first rules of decent, principles-abiding journalism is that you don’t print rumors. That is nevertheless what The New York Times [NYT] just did in a smear job on John McCain, who is very nearly certain to be the Republican nominee for president.

In a lengthy story that mostly dwells on long-past incidents and questions about his connections with lobbyists, the newspaper does something that shocks you more about its declining standards than it does about McCain’s ethics. It reports mere suspicions some staffers once had that he was engaged in a love affair with a woman lobbyist and their fears that letters he wrote on behalf of her client would be seen as a favor to her.

As evidence of any actual romance, the paper offers nothing. It tells us that eight years ago, during his first run for the presidency, advisers became worried that the woman was around him too often. According to two unidentified sources, there was apparently fear there could be a romance, that the press would learn of it and that this could be ruinous for their boss, but no one knew anything. It’s on this basis - a rumor denied by McCain, the woman and others and predicated on nothing but speculation - that the paper went with the story.

Except for the political bias, this is the sort of journalistic escapade you would expect from the National Enquirer, no more valid than the scandal-mongering headlines that shout at you from grocery-store shelves. But please note that the sensational material occupies no more than about a third of some 60 paragraphs, and that the Times early on gives itself an excuse for the malignant exercise. The story’s theme is provided in a line that says McCain’s “confidence in his own integrity has sometimes seemed to blind him to potentially embarrassing conflicts of interest.”

Maybe the Times’ confidence in its own pre-eminence among newspapers has blinded it to what it really did here. It took juicy, unsubstantiated, potentially devastating gossip sure to get immediate, national attention and used it as prelude and conclusion in a piece exploring whether McCain is quite so honest as he is widely believed to be.

The paper could have left out the trash and run an analysis - or better yet, a long editorial - that revisited and voiced opinions on all the old material it rehashes in the story. Even the letters McCain wrote to regulators concerning the woman’s client had been reported years ago and found unexceptional.

About the only thing newly reported was the romance rumor, and since this is the kind of matter The New York Times now trafficks in, I have a couple of propositions for the rag. There are lots and lots of cheap, ugly, unverified rumors about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton out there. In Clinton’s case, they have been floating around for years. The Obama rumors are newer. It won’t take much work in either instance to find them - the Web is bloated with this claptrap - and then The New York Times can strike.

It can take one of the more lurid Clinton rumors, and then dress it up in a news story as a thought-provoking introduction to ruminations on some very real events, such as how she once made a mint on cattle futures. It can then use some outlandish rumor about Obama to pull readers into a piece seriously reflecting at interminable length on his well-known real-estate deal with a Chicago influence peddler. As with the McCain story, it can play both of these stories on the top of its front page.

But it won’t, of course. The New York Times confines its yellow journalism to stories about Republicans.

All the rumors unfit to print - BostonHerald.com

Statement by Brent Bozell, President of the Media Research Center - 17 hours ago

It is beyond appalling that the New York Times continues its steady slide into the journalistic toilet with such a spurious, and so patently politically
motivated, hit job. A ten-year old piece of gossip, with no evidence whatsoever -- this is what qualifies for "news" at this disgrace of a newspaper.

Comment by John Feehery, President of The Feehery Group
The New York Times Needs to Focus on News, Not on Innuendo - 14 hours ago

The motto of the New York Times is all the news that is fit to print. The story it ran today about John McCain was not fit to print. It wasn't news. It
was innuendo. And worse, it was sexual innuendo. This kind of journalism only diminishes the reputation of the Times. I would expect this kind of reporting from the National Enquirer, not the New York Times.

Why we didn't run the McCain story
I chose not to run the New York Times story on John McCain in Thursday's P-I, even though it was available to us on the New York Times News Service. I thought I'd take a shot at explaining why.

To me, the story had serious flaws. It did not convincingly make the case that McCain either had an affair with a lobbyist, or was improperly influenced by her. It used a raft of unnamed sources to assert that members of McCain's campaign staff -- not this campaign but his campaign eight years ago -- were concerned about the amount of time McCain was spending with the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman. They were worried about the appearance of a close bond between the two of them.

Then it went even further back, re-establishing the difficulties McCain had with his close association to savings-and-loan criminal Charles Keating. It didn't get back to the thing that (of course) the rest of the media immediately pounced on -- McCain, Iseman and the nature of their relationship -- until very deep in the story. And when the story did get back there, it didn't do so with anything approaching convincing material.

A very good editor I happen to work for, P-I Editor and Publisher Roger Oglesby, said today that the story read like a candidate profile to him, not an investigative story, and I think that's true. A candidate profile based on a lot of old anecdotes.

Obviously, the reporters, Jim Rutenberg, Marilyn W. Thompson, David D. Kirkpatrick and Stephen Labaton, are not working for me. I have no way, other than their excellent reputations, of specifically evaluating their sourcing. That job fell to Bill Keller, the editor of The New York Times, who had held the story, citing concerns about whether the reporters had "nailed it," long enough to fatally fracture the newspaper's relationship with Thompson. She left today to go back to work for The Washington Post.

Admitting that Keller was in a better position to vet the sourcing and facts than I am as, basically, a reader, let's assume that every source is solid and every fact attributed in the story to an anonymous source is true. You're still dealing with a possible appearance of impropriety, eight years ago, that is certainly unproven and probably unprovable.
Where is the solid evidence of this lobbyist improperly influencing (or bedding) McCain? I didn't see it in the half-dozen times I read the story. In paragraphs fifty-eight through sixty-one of the sixty-five-paragraph story, the Times points out two matters in which McCain took actions favorable to the lobbyist's clients -- that were also clearly consistent with his previously stated positions.

That's pretty thin beer.

And the "it must be so because it's in The New York Times" argument will never hold much water after Judith Miller and Ahmed Chalabi got done perforating it.

Consider what's happened next. Surprise -- the wave of follow-up publicity and punditry has focused hot and heavy on the angle of the postulated -- and denied -- romantic relationship, frequently comparing McCain to admitted philanderers like former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey and former President Clinton.

For a story that dealt with the maybe, looked-like-to-some-people, nobody-knew-for-sure dalliance in an extraordinarily elliptical fashion, it sure had a lot of impact. People read between the lines just fine, thank you.

This story seems to me not to pass the smell test. It makes the innuendo of impropriety, even corruption, without backing it up. I was taught that before you run something in the newspaper that could ruin somebody's reputation, you'd better have your facts very straight indeed.

"Nailed" would be one way to describe that.

The Washington Post ran its own story a few hours later. It was less contorted and easier to follow. Still based on some anonymous sourcing. It did bother me a little today when Len Downie, like Keller an outstanding editor, said The New York Times story "helped" them get their sources to confirm certain things and enable them to run their story. That seemed a little co-dependent in terms of sourcing.

Of course, we'll follow the story now. The story has become an inextricable part of the campaign narrative. The story, in a sense, is the story now.

But on Wednesday night, I didn't really want to participate in making it so.
Why we didn't run the McCain story

A Poorly Sourced Story
February 22, 2008
Article tools
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Digg Del.icio.us Facebook Fark Google Newsvine Reddit Yahoo Print Reprints Post comment Text size: The New York Times has some explaining to do about its story Thursday suggesting that Sen. John McCain of Arizona had a romantic relationship several years ago with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate Commerce Committee, headed at the time by Mr. McCain.

Two former associates of the senator who were not named were reported as saying that Mr. McCain had acknowledged inappropriate behavior and promised to keep his distance from the telecommunications lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, who is some 30 years the senator's junior. The unidentified aides in Mr. McCain's failed 2000 campaign for the GOP presidential nomination were said to be concerned about Ms. Iseman's frequent appearances in his office and at campaign events.

Mr. McCain denied any romantic relationship or doing "anything that would betray the public trust." Other aides have disputed the accounts by the unnamed sources.




The Times said it stands by its reporting and that "the story speaks for itself." Indeed it does. But what it says does not flatter the newspaper.

The Times has dropped a bombshell in the midst of a presidential campaign, alleging questionable behavior by Mr. McCain but without sufficient attribution.

The Times used sources it identified obliquely, such as "several people involved in the campaign," "two former McCain associates" (described as "disillusioned" with the senator), "a former campaign adviser" and "a Senate aide." Only former "top McCain aide" John Weaver was identified by name, and he said nothing about any romantic relationship.

The use of unnamed sources can sometimes be justified if the story is significant, is corroborated and can't be reported any other way — but probably not in this case. The New York Times — whose editorial page endorsed Mr. McCain in January, ahead of the Super Tuesday primary — needs to explain why this story justified using anonymous sources. It should also elaborate on its timing, since the newspaper was working on the story last year. Why did it delay publication?

We don't know whom to believe. But the Times does not build a credible story with the use of so many unidentified sources.

A Poorly Sourced Story -- Courant.com

and on and on, are all those McCainites? Is that even a term?

[kinggovernor]

New York Times 0, New Republic 0, McCain 1
How two publications spooked each other into running weak stories.
By Timothy Noah

The McCain scandal story resembles a stock scene in an old Western. The sheriff trains his gun on the outlaw. The outlaw trains his gun on the sheriff. The bartender sneezes, the guns start blazing, and the friendly piano player (or possibly the prostitute with a heart of gold) gets shot in the crossfire.

The New York Times purportedly rushed its story into print because it was worried that the New Republic would go to press with a story criticizing the Times for chickening out. (The Times denies this.) The Times' premature publication of the scandal story—I agree with the general consensus that it fails to demonstrate either that McCain had an affair with a lobbyist or that the lobbyist exercised undue influence on him—prompted the New Republic, in turn, to rush its media-criticism piece into print. The New Republic piece, contrary to the Times' apparent fears, is only mildly informative, and although it insinuates at the end that the Times failed to nail down a story that was nonetheless true, it provides no evidence demonstrating that it's true and doesn't really lay out an argument that it's true. New Republic editor Frank Foer says it was never the magazine's intent to establish whether the sex story was true, and that if the Times hadn't published its piece, his magazine might not have published its own. Rebranding sex-scandal stories (in this case, rumors) as press stories is a time-honored way for the "quality" press to spread gossip and sanctimony at the same time.

McCain, of course, is the piano player/prostitute in this scheme, and, obviously, he's the one who's been shot. But (I predict) he will be carried upstairs, and wise old Doc will tend to him, and he'll be back on his feet in no time. The Times and the New Republic are looking at a much longer convalescence. (What is it with the Times' political coverage these days? Two weeks ago the paper ran an idiotic story arguing that Barack Obama didn't take enough drugs when he was in college.)

Regardless of whether he had the affair, McCain wins. If he was Vicki Iseman's lover, the Times and New Republic have now discredited the story by failing to produce much in the way of evidence. If he wasn't Vicki Iseman's lover, then he has shamed the press with his righteous indignation. As a bonus, the scandal story has provoked an apparent rapprochement with McCain-haters Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham, who hate the Times a lot more.

New York Times 0, New Republic 0, McCain 1. - By Timothy Noah - Slate Magazine

[Fed Up]

McCain caught in a lie?

A Hole in McCain’s Defense? | Newsweek Politics: Campaign 2008 | Newsweek.com

Excerpt;

"A sworn deposition that Sen. John McCain gave in a lawsuit more than five years ago appears to contradict one part of a sweeping denial that his campaign issued this week to rebut a New York Times story about his ties to a Washington lobbyist.

On Wednesday night the Times published a story suggesting that McCain might have done legislative favors for the clients of the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, who worked for the firm of Alcalde & Fay. One example it cited were two letters McCain wrote in late 1999 demanding that the Federal Communications Commission act on a long-stalled bid by one of Iseman's clients, Florida-based Paxson Communications, to purchase a Pittsburgh television station.

Just hours after the Times's story was posted, the McCain campaign issued a point-by-point response that depicted the letters as routine correspondence handled by his staff—and insisted that McCain had never even spoken with anybody from Paxson or Alcalde & Fay about the matter. "No representative of Paxson or Alcalde & Fay personally asked Senator McCain to send a letter to the FCC," the campaign said in a statement e-mailed to reporters.
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But that flat claim seems to be contradicted by an impeccable source: McCain himself. "I was contacted by Mr. Paxson on this issue," McCain said in the Sept. 25, 2002, deposition obtained by NEWSWEEK. "He wanted their approval very bad for purposes of his business. I believe that Mr. Paxson had a legitimate complaint."

and now there's this: FEC Poses Fresh Problem for McCain | The Trail | washingtonpost.com

and this: "Figures in the Arizona Republican party have long had organized crime connections. Now McCain's AZ chairman has been indicted, and McCain himself has some splainin' to do about his connections with the Mafia."

A sinking ship?

Fed Up

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by JaJae

It's interesting that they chose to release their story on this now despite not having a source and despite not even having an anonymous source making any allegations. They're giving you bits and pieces and wanting you to draw your own conclusions nine years later... It's definitely strange. I heard one of the writers actually quit the NY Times because he wanted the story published months ago, but they refused to release it until now. I wonder what they were waiting for, it's not like they got any facts.

It had nothing to do with the impending New Republic Story about the internal NYTimes fight over this story.................


Nothing!

[bheld]

Originally Posted by JaJae

It's interesting that they chose to release their story on this now despite not having a source and despite not even having an anonymous source making any allegations. They're giving you bits and pieces and wanting you to draw your own conclusions nine years later... It's definitely strange. I heard one of the writers actually quit the NY Times because he wanted the story published months ago, but they refused to release it until now. I wonder what they were waiting for, it's not like they got any facts.

They sat on the story because the McCain campaign practically begged them. They have a long history of sitting on stories that go against what conservatives want. They also have a nice history of beating the war drums for this administration.

That's why I don't buy the vast liberal conspiracy theory.

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by motivez

I can't say I find your position (as a supporter of John McCain) all that surprising tbh.. it isn't exactly an impartial one

Mine isn't either of course, since I don't particularly care for him after seeing him chuck every one of his core beliefs over the last few years (most recently being against torture) in his bid to secure this nomination.. so it certainly wouldn't surprise me to learn that hey, he's just like most other Senators who allow lobbyists to influence their policy decisions.

But I'm not going to dismiss it out of hand as a 'smear', which I expect will be the typical response of McCainites..

Now if Conservative Republicans don't roll over to these baseless attacks (regardless of how we feel about McCain on Issues that matter) we are McCainites!

I have anonymous sources that say Hillary Clinton is a Man!

Prove me wrong!

And I love the irrelevant introduction. Why not be certain to throw in as much partisanship as possible on unrelated issues before the neutral analysis. Keep it up. McCain is looking better everyday!

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by bheld

They sat on the story because the McCain campaign practically begged them. They have a long history of sitting on stories that go against what conservatives want. They also have a nice history of beating the war drums for this administration.

And you have evidence for any of that?

We are talking the New York Times or did I miss something?

Please post a thread!

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by bheld

They sat on the story because the McCain campaign practically begged them. They have a long history of sitting on stories that go against what conservatives want. They also have a nice history of beating the war drums for this administration.

That's why I don't buy the vast liberal conspiracy theory.

Actually, Keller, the editor of the NY Times, said they sat on the story because they didn't feel it was substantiated. They ran it on their website the day before TNR was going to run an article on the sloppy/biased journalism of the Times regarding this story. Whether the TNR story had something to do with its release isn't clear, the NY Times is denying it, but it seems kind of strange they sat on it for so long and than ran it when they did knowing about the TNR story.

[kinggovernor]

the story was SO bad it is now a conspiracy theory

Courant.com
The Lobbyist, The Drudge, The Times, The Fixer
Colin McEnroe

To Wit

February 24, 2008

The older I get, the less I want to know about anybody else's sex life. If you put a picture face down in front of me and told me it was Tiger Woods and Lindsay Lohan engaged in an act of lewd and lascivious congress, I would not turn it over.

I did look at the nude Marilyn Monroe tribute photos of Lohan in the current New York magazine, but not until her mother, Dina, had assured us that they were art. The pictures, I think she meant.

So I don't much care whether John McCain had an affair with Vicki Iseman, a lobbyist for several telecommunications companies with business before the committee he chaired. The New York Times alleged this on Thursday, and one of the things that the article proved right away was that, although Republicans are deeply divided, the two forces that can unite them are their love of our American freedoms and their hatred of New York Times yuppie scum, they should die like pigs in hell.

Even Joe Lieberman, who is not a Republican but who often "unites" with them, and sometimes on the first date, accused the Times of "puking" up 8-year-old rumors. That may not sound senatorial to you, but it was in fact a respectful invocation of Sen. Henry Clay's famous 1850 speech about compromise, in which Clay asked: "What if, in the march of this nation to greatness and power, we should be buried beneath the puke that propels it onward?"

Lieberman had an even more important role to play in convincing us of McCain's innocence. He explained that he and McCain had traveled the world and met many lovely ladies and that he had never seen McCain do anything inappropriate.

Not that there haven't been some opportunities for those two mack daddies, right? When they hit Abu Dhabi in their Miami Vice unstructured white sports jackets and Don Johnson cheek stubble, it's like ring-a-ding-ding, hey there, you with the stars in your eyes. I'm sure that China doll down in old Hong Kong waits for their return.

If only they weren't so darned ethical!, say all those beautiful babies whose hearts are breaking. With Joe Lieberman as his wing man, McCain could have sampled the sexual banquet tables of this world, and not just young American lobbyists who look exactly like Amy Poehler impersonating his wife.

Anyway, my current theory is that McCain, sensing his campaign was in trouble, had one of his most trusted lieutenants, John Weaver, leak this sex scandal to The New York Times, knowing that all Times-hating Republicans would flock to his standard if the story ran.

But then it didn't run. The Times sat on this story for months. Why? Because the Times finds this kind of story distasteful. In New York, there are other kinds of newspapers that handle stories like this. They are called "tabloids," from the Greek root "tab," meaning "SLAIN FROZEN PROSTITUTE," and the Latin suffix "-loid," meaning "IN QUEENS LOVE NEST WITH HALF-GOAT POPE BABY."

The New York Post is one such newspaper, although the Post probably would not run the McCain story on its front page unless it could be "proven" (e.g., wildly speculated about) that John and Vicki regularly entertained themselves by making actor Jude Law get down on all fours and drink out of a dog dish.

The New York Times could not figure out what to do, so for months they had meetings about it. Having worked at a daily newspaper, I have attended many such meetings and — far from the public supposition that they are full of fast-paced MacArthur and Hecht "Front Page" wisecracks — they are more like throbbing, nitrous oxide time-distortion experiences in which it takes 97 minutes to say, "I don't think we have this nailed down yet." These meetings are like alien abductions, minus the comforting thought that some advanced civilization obtained much-needed scientific knowledge by probing your rectum.

While the Times had these meetings, rumors began to spread around our nation's capital, because one of the thorny aspects of reporting is the way in which even a fair-minded reporter's honest efforts to verify or disprove a rumor can spread a separate rumor — that the story is being worked on.

So if I called up, say, Justice Antonin Scalia, Madeleine Albright, historian David McCullough and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and asked them whether it's true that NBC anchor Brian Williams is a woman … well, actually, I would probably be arrested for making harassing phone calls. But if I worked for the Times and I did that, it would get around that The New York Times is working on a story about whether Brian Williams is a woman.

And eventually, Matt Drudge would run, on his Drudge Report site, an item that said "Why is the New York Times sitting on its Brian-Williams-is-a-woman story?"

This is exactly what happened with the McCain story. Drudge ran a report in December saying that McCain had hired D.C. power lawyer Bob Bennett to quash the Times piece about the female lobbyist. Bob Bennett is the guy you call in D.C. if you wake up naked next to a dead adult camel and notice there are 241 red Twizzlers Krazy-Glued to your body and gradually remember you are also vice president of the United States. You'll skate through the whole sordid mess. He's that good. Believe me, I know. (It's a long story.)

It's worth mentioning that Drudge is Matt's real last name and that he showed an early aptitude for journalism when he was arrested at 15 for making harassing phone calls (see above) and that he later got a job in Los Angeles in the CBS gift shop and then started going through the wastebaskets in the building, which is how he broke his first big story (" Larry Hagman Half-Chews His French Fries and Then Spits Them Back Out.")

Once Drudge began running items like that, the jig was up, and the Times had no choice but to have 47 more meetings and then publish the story.

If this whole scenario sounds a little familiar, that's because it has happened before, when Drudge ran an item asking why Newsweek had killed a story about President Clinton having sex with an intern. And then President Clinton hired Bob Bennett (see above).

So if history teaches us anything, it teaches that McCain will weather this crisis with the help of Bennett and that, about eight years from now, Cindy McCain will run for president and face a tough fight for the nomination against Tavis Smiley.

You can hear Colin McEnroe's talk show weekdays from 3 to 6 p.m. on WTIC-AM 1080 in Hartford.

For daily commentary, read Colin McEnroe's blog at Colin McEnroe | To Wit.

my local newspaper has picked up on this conspiracy theory as well