http://webnewsroom.blogspot.com/2008/02/new-york-times-does-hit-piece-on-mccain.html
The New York Times Wednesday night broke a story claiming that aides to John McCain were concerned about an improper relationship he had with lobbyist Vicki Iseman back in 2000. Apparently, the Times had been holding the story since December, apparently feeling that it was not substantial enough, yet with no new evidence, felt compelled to drop this bomb on McCain now that he is the apparent Republican nominee.
The article’s charge that McCain flew around the country in a plane with this lobbyist may not be true, but it wasn’t illegal at the time. The rules are different now, but back then it was legal. (Much like DeLay’s money swap in Texas.)
Anyone who reads this site knows that I dislike John McCain, find him way too liberal, and have posted about why I cannot vote for him, but this story is simply sleaze with an agenda. Fairness requires that all decent people speak out against this journalistic dishonesty.
This isn’t sloppy journalism. It’s malicious journalism. Just as I didn’t believe the Edwards love-child story without evidence and I don’t believe the guy who claims to have snorted coke and had homosexual sex with Obama unless and until I see proof, I don’t believe this story either unless there is a LOT more to it than this — especially since it was in the New York Times. The Times no longer has a shred of credibility. Anything you see in the New York Times should be presumed false until proven otherwise.
However, let’s assume for a moment that all of these are true. If they were true, which would be the biggest scandal? The alleged Obama scandal would be a much bigger story, if true, than anything that McCain is alleged to have done. So why isn’t the Times pursuing that story?
The Times exhibited a reckless disregard for the truth here. This is the New York Times, after all. Fairness is apparently against its principles.
The fact that they talked to McCain himself and his people in December and they gave the Times information about when he had worked against this lobbyist’s interests yet the Times could not be bothered to include that tells you that there was a political agenda here.
But whose?
Was it a Clinton plant? Remember that rumors of affairs were planted against the elder Bush in the ‘92 campaign and against Dole in ‘96, neither of which had any evidence to support it. (The Dole rumor even had him paying for the mistress’s abortion.)
Did Obama’s people plant it to shift attention away from Obama’s radical agenda? (and if so, did the Times run it when they did to get Michelle Obama’s comments off page one?)
Did McCain’s people plant the false story themselves, looking both to embarrass the Times and use the false story to try to get conservatives to rally around Senator McCain?
Any of them is devious enough.
But why did the Times, which Pinchy Sulzberger has told his staff is to promote a liberal-left agenda, endorse McCain if they already had this story in the works? Was it to set him up as the Republican nominee so they could drop this stink bomb on him?
Just as DNCBS damaged itself with its (in my opinion) knowingly false story about Bush and the National Guard, the Times damages itself with this story. Yet another example of blatant liberal media bias. Or is this something worse?