A pretty reasoned response to the McCain NY Times 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
***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.
***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.
I tend to agree with his reason to not run the story in the Seattle PI- were I Bill Keller, I would not have run it. Maybe some evidence will appear in the following weeks that backs up all the claims in the original piece. I don’t know, but right now this looks like a pretty clear case of shoddy journalism.
cleek
damn you Scott Beauchamp!
ThymeZone
It’s a reasoned response, but misses the point.
The story wasn’t out to prove that McCain had an affair or gave special treatment to a lobbyist.
It describes a guy who is tone deaf about the appearance of impropriety, thinks he is above that kind of scrutiny, and plays his POW card to dismiss criticism whenever convenient.
It’s about his attitude and the way people around him are affected by it.
The media chose to take off with the scandal aspect. the fact is, we have a media in this country that is not competant to do its job, which is to facilitate an informed public. NYT raises a relevant issue about McCain, but manages to do it in a clumsy way, and then the media and blog worlds get it all wrong and keep blabbing about the wrong aspects of the story.
It takes work to process the information stream and get things right, whether you are NYT, a blog, or just a citizen. If you don’t do the work, you can get things wrong. And if you get it wrong on a big scale, you can screw up the country.
Jamey
Whereas this story about McCain being in bed with lobbyists?
There’s more fire than smoke where McCain’s “ethics” are concerned.
D. Mason
Nice find John. Examples of responsible journalism are precious few these days.
myiq2xu
My problem with the story is that it lacks the essential element of a sex scandal – sex.
There is innuendo and rumor, but no first hand or hearsay evidence (anonymous or otherwise) of a sexual affair.
Both principals deny the affair, and no one says there was one. So what’s the point of the story?
And since when is Senators doing favors for lobbyists a scandal? It should be, but it happens ever damn day.
TenguPhule
That McCain is a holier then thou asshole who can’t handle when circumstances make him look bad.
And the NYT editor seems to be a dumb shit….again.
Davebo
I blame Bill Kristol.
ThymeZone
Well duh, that is basically the foundation for the NYT story in the first place.
When a Senator can schmooze with a lobbyist while taking official actions that favor that lobbyist, and then act like nobody dare question what he is doing, that matters.
The NYT story did a lousy job of selling that point, but that was the point. Just because they botched it doesn’t mean it isn’t a valid point.
Then the media botched the botch, and the blogs as always are botching everything. But look, here we are exploring the real issues here, which proves that it is doable if people just pay attention.
McCain is a trainwreck. Maybe this case doesn’t settle the matter, but he is, and it is important.
JWeidner
While I absolutely agree that the sexual angle of the story is thin beyond words, the impropriety angle is getting more attention for sure. The Washington Post has an article about McCain’s relationships with various lobbyists, many of whom are running his current campaign.
To wit:
His campaign manager is Rick Davis, who “co-founded a lobbying firm whose clients have included Verizon and SBC Telecommunications.”
His chief political adviser is Charles R. Black, Jr., a “chairman of one of Washington’s lobbying powerhouses, BKSH and Associates, which has represented AT&T, Alcoa, JPMorgan and U.S. Airways.”
“Senior advisers Steve Schmidt and Mark McKinnon work for firms that have lobbied for Land O’ Lakes, UST Public Affairs, Dell and Fannie Mae.”
Link
The article also states that Black is still being paid by his firm, and currently has clients, including GM, United Technologies, JPMorgan and AT&T.
Personally, for McCain, who has railed against the influence of special interests, to have his campaign staff so permeated with lobbyists is more than hypocritical, it reeks of improper access. And who knows what happens if McCain runs a successful presidential campaign? Do these lobbyists get presidential access? I think we’d be foolish to assume McCain would just dump them on the side of Pennsylvania Ave while he marches up to the White House.
IMO, the evidence is certainly starting to stack up that McCain says one thing – in regards to special interests and lobbyist power in Washington – but doesn’t have the common sense to steer clear of situations that have a strong appearance of impropriety.
Zifnab
Bullshit. It was innuendo, plain and clear. “John McCain may not be guilty of anything, but it sure does look like he’s guilty of something” style journalism. The story is, admittedly, about McCain’s hubris before it is about any actual illicit affairs. But you can’t talk about “alleged impropriety” on the front page of the NYT without yourself alleging impropriety.
The writer should have lead with a semi-definitive yes-he-did/no-he-didn’t statement from the start. At the very least, he should have had a big fat disclaimer in the opening paragraph explaining exactly how little evidence there is against McCain on this. There should have been no question in the reader’s mind that McCain is under no serious suspicion of wrong-doing – no criminal case is pending, no investigation is outstanding, no one even gave a shit about this before the NYT picked it up.
And after writing all this in defense of McCain, I can’t help feeling really silly. Because this is the nature of journalism in the 21st century – allegations first, fact-finding maybe eventually some time later.
I feel silly because after the Obama “plagiarism” scandal and the Rezko “scandal” and the Clinton fund raising “scandal”, all of which turned up as increasingly bigger duds, why should I give a crap about McCain? Dude has been in the thick of the media games since ’82, and he’s been sucking MSM wang straight through both Presidential bids. He can suck it up just like every other Presidential Candidate before him.
If McCain can’t handle a non-scandal scandal, perhaps the man isn’t fit to be President any more than Hillary Clinton.
yet another jeff
So then…do the same concerns cover the article in the Washington Post?
Thom
Don’t look to anyone but McCain for why this should be a story [warning: link goes to my crappy blog].
Funny that the P-I editor used those exact words – “appearance of impropriety.” That’s all you need to justify this story, as McCain himself noted. Why? Because he’s a fucking U.S. Senator.
This story has the exact same template: Big donater and personal mega-wealthy friend needs some legal help; McCain makes call to person in charge of legalities; person gets legal help. This is about Paxson and McCain. The Iseman stuff needed to be written if they have aides who backed up the info, but it’s not the important part of the story.
Elvis Elvisberg
The NYT story, as written, was unfit to print. It was a sex scandal story without the sex. Good on the PI for not running it.
But there appears to be something going on here. McCain had criticized one of Iseman’s clients, and media consolidation… but then went and lobbied to defend its desire to engage in more consolidation.
Dervin
I’m still betting that it was the NYTimes doing this as a way for McCain to shore up his “conservative” base without actually catering to them.
jenniebee
Uh, guys? He tried to pressure the FCC, which was overseen by the committee he chaired, on behalf of one of Iseman’s clients (who were not among his constituents).
Now I don’t care if it’s because he was sleeping with the lobbyist, or if he just liked her, or what, but the man was pulling strings for her clients.
Thom
And another thing: don’t anybody try the “everybody does this” bullshit. You are ass fucking backwards. It’s true that everybody does it – but it doesn’t make it right. What the Fuck? McCain’s running for president. So let him attract a brighter light to common sleaziness with rich friends and power for sale.
myiq2xu
I agree, but like I said before, it happens every damn day.
But the NYT’s tried to pimp this story as a sex scandal, and all it has is innuendo.
McCain and a lobbyist were seen together at the same places – his aides were concerned that they were “too friendly” – his aides tried to block her access – he did things to help her clients.
Where’s Linda Tripp dishing the dirt on her “friend?” Where’s the blue dress? Where’s a state trooper saying he escorted her to McCain’s hotel room? Where’s the video?
McCain’s a scumbag, but this is bullshit.
The Grand Panjandrum
J. Peter Freire, writing in The American Spectator has the best take I’ve read on the McCain brouhaha.
People who live glass houses …
Dug Jay
While Obama talks a good game relative to lobbyists, the reality is that he’s in bed with them just like Clinton and other candidates; he’s just hypocritical about his involvements. Here are a few excerpts from a piece reported a year ago by The Hill:
Thom
mygix!!
You just used the “but everybody does it” defense. Unbelievable. If they all hold hands and take a million dollars each from Halliburton and agree to never look their way again should everybody just shut the fuck up?
Unbelievable.
The Grand Panjandrum
Oops!
My comment editor is broken. My dog ate my homework. Trust me I’m from the …
ThymeZone
Nope, dead wrong. It was about the fact that HIS OWN PEOPLE thought it made him look guilty of something, and he ignored them.
That was the story, and it was apparently verifiably true. Poorly presented, but true, and relevant.
myiq2xu
Helping constituents deal with the federal bureaucracy is what our elected representatives in Washington DC are supposed to do. We just expect them to do it for us, not big business.
Lobbying is perfectly legal. In a perfect world a lobbyist would explain to a Congressman what his clients needed and why, and the Congressman would help them only because it was the “right” thing to do.
We all know that’s not how it really works. But why is this case different from a million others? Is “K” street suddenly a big surprise?
Without the sex angle this is just another example of politics as usual. There is no sex and it’s 8 years old. So WTF?
Punchy
this describes the right-wing in today’s society. Except maybe the second part…about fact-finding.
McCane’s finally getting a taste–right or wrong–of what a smear campaign feels like. Fuck him and his cronies.
myiq2xu
Bullshit. Lobbyists will pay off both sides so that whoever wins owes them.
Mr Furious
Rumor is they ran the story to not get scooped on it. Why is that even a factor for these papers and guys like Keller anymore? This is a 24-hour newscycle now, and there’s no longer a time when you can be the only paper on the stand with a story for a day.
This was stupid. If you’re first out with a story it’s by a matter of minutes, and if anybody even knows who “broke” it, it’s forgotten after a few days when everybody drives it into the ground with 24-hour coverage.
The only time you get your paper’s name indelibly attached to a story is if you rush a piece out and blow it—everyone remembers THAT, and it hurts your credibility and everybody elses.
The high-risk/low-reward on stuff like this seems like a no-brainer. To me at least…
Thom
Okay, now you can all shut up.
You’re welcome.
Thom
Damn, now I look stupid.
That was supposed to have a link in it.
LITBMueller
Whoops!!!!
Its never the “crime.” Its always the coverup. McCain is certainly old enough to know that phrase. Maybe he’s getting too old to remember what he said in sworn depositions…
Jamey
Sorry, suckers. The Times fights back, ostensibly by providing other media with their reporters’ materials: http://www.newsweek.com/id/114505
I know I’m not first to the party with the Newsweek article. But there’s NO way The Times goes to press on the McCain piece without crossing its “t”s. I think The Times set a trap for the RWNM, a little payback, perhaps?
And all you knobs who second the measured, cautious, journalist-y Seattle PI piece? Puh-leez!
Elvis Elvisberg
myiq2xu, it’s just plain false to say that there’s no such thing as acting improperly on behalf of a lobbyist because politicians do favors for lobbyists all the time. On your theory, it would be OK if McCain had murdered a lobbyist for a different firm, because hey, people do stuff for lobbyists all the time in Washington DC.
At the time, an FCC commissioner said, “It is highly unusual for the commissioners to be asked to publicly announce their voting status on a matter that is still pending.” He said such inquiries “could have procedural and substantive impacts on the Commission’s deliberations and, thus, on the due process rights of the parties.”
So what McCain did was unusual and bad, and not totally unlike what he’d done in the Keating scandal.
Your IQ is twice mine, so I can only assume that you’re being deliberately obtuse, rather than that you don’t understand that there’s any such thing as acting improperly on behalf of a lobbyist. Please stop.
w vincentz
Golly gee whiz!
You’re all missing the point (pun intended).
This is masked GOP stimulation kinda like foreplay.
The video will be coming out soon as a fund raising tool (another intended pun) so that the gay bashing Refucks can feel ever so self righteous as they watch Johnny Jowls do Vicki Icegirl doggy style.
They’ll pay big for the XXX video.
More to cum soon, viagra commercials later (after Johnny’s impending defeat in Nov.)
Will he go limp in the end?
Nah! Nah! Nah!
Garrigus Carraig
What Mr Furious said. This story looks much better on page A6, half as long, with no irresponsible-not-to-speculate sex angle.
It looks like the Times ran it to get ahead of the TNR metastory. If that’s the case, that’s just sad. Really, if you’re afraid of TNR impugning your credibility, that speaks volumes about your credibility.
Also, what jenniebee said. Paxson (headquartered in Fla.), even if they had an Ariz. office, wasn’t really acting as a constituent of John Sidney McCain III in the course of business dealings in Pittsburgh.
Randolph Fritz
The Seattle P-I is the right wing daily; the Seattle Times is the far-right daily. (There is no centrist or left-wing daily.) They are owned by the same organization. Of course the P-I didn’t run the story. Sheesh.
LarryB
That’s a really generous reading of what McCain did for Paxson at the FCC.
McCain was leaning hard on the FCC to the direct benefit of an out of state media corporation at the behest of their D.C. – based lobbyists. That’s not the same thing as representing a constituent. Moreover, McCain performed this favor shortly after Paxson (directly or laundered through the lobbying firm) ponied up a 20 grand campaign contribution. That smacks of quid pro quo.
All this was out there in 2000. It’s coming back to haunt McCain now because, well, he’s the GOP nominee. The sex angle is just a ploy to sell papers, IMO. The Times has been headlining tabloid stories since the Clinton years, at least.
ThymeZone
That’s just silly, of course you can. We are doing it right here. It’s not exactly rocket science.
Tsulagi
That “affair” innuendo in the NYT was really tacky. Pretty low. Even if everything was verifiable all it “proves” is that McCain might like to have eye candy around. BFD.
I was thinking since the NYT knew McCain had already lawyered up for this, that possibly they just printed that amount thinking/hoping he might respond with a “I did not have sex with that lobbyist” moment. Then unload on him with more.
Looks like that might have already happened a little on the lobbying part of the story with what Newsweek is now reporting.
But still the NYT didn’t have to spice it up with the affair/non-affair crap. Be nice if we could go back to the pre-“family values” days before wetsuited/dildoed culture warriors were slobbering about everyone else’s values with journalists and politicians pandering to them.
ThymeZone
I think the affair innuendos came from McCain’s people, not from the imaginations of the NYT. And their relevance is that he was making himself look bad, which he was.
That was the story. And it appears to be a true story.
The game here is to inflate the story to scandal and thereby make it easier to deflate. But the story wasn’t about scandal, it was about a guy who flaunts his character and then goes around looking sleazy.
BJS
Bobo Brooks has an interesting take in the NY Times. One of his inner circle stirring up things.
Incertus (Brian)
Add to it that McCain is running on the idea that he’s the straight talker who isn’t affected by lobbyists, and the hypocrisy gets even deeper. The issue is that he is just like every other politician, not a maverick.
Jay B.
OK, now that McCain contradicts himself — he says one thing in a sworn affidavit and something completely opposite when denouncing the Times — what’s the apologists’ angle?
Everyone gets caught lying when they denounce a story about inappropriate lobbying? That without the sex being proven, St. Maverick of Lady Reform is still good on the issue? Seriously, if a guy runs on “cleaning up the system” and has LONG been party to the same system, isn’t it a wee bit important to challenge him on these obvious hypocrisies, the appearance of which his OWN STAFF ratted him out on?
I’ll tell you what, if Bill Clinton started leaning on the thong industry after the Lewinsky thing, I’d feel the same way.
wwz
Its right to scorn the publishing of the article, I guess. Lacking specifics and all. But its not like McCAin is a total fraud where lobbyists are concerned. Still, we weep for a better press. One wonders why. Its been this way for years and years. No surprise.
The real question is not whether McCain committed adultery, again (who cares). Corruption may be another matter.
But, who and why is the story out there? Thats the interesting part. Keller is the dupe, not the instigator. The NYT has played this roll before for the ‘other’ side. But really, what was the real motivation, goal, and whose interest did it serve most? Know that and you will know the secrets of the pyramids.
ThymeZone
Yeah, we said it yesterday: 50-50 that McCain himself arranged this thing to give himself Anti Liberal Media cred among his base voters.
Remfin
Putting your trust in Keller’s judgment seems…not very smart to me. Isn’t this the man that spiked the NSA story for over a year for election purposes?
A year from now are we going to see the exact same story from the exact same reporters with their 100% bullet-proof sources that prove it that he would not allow them to print right now for fear of “influencing the election”, like with the NSA story?
Asti
Right front paw of the Sphinx?