Smearing McCain

I am not a fan of John McCain, but the rumor-based smear leveled at him by the New York Times is more than a little unfair.

Early in Senator John McCain’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers.

A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.

When news organizations reported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist’s client, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement.

Mr. McCain, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, both say they never had a romantic relationship. But to his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity.

[...]

In interviews, the two former associates said they joined in a series of confrontations with Mr. McCain, warning him that he was risking his campaign and career. Both said Mr. McCain acknowledged behaving inappropriately and pledged to keep his distance from Ms. Iseman. The two associates, who said they had become disillusioned with the senator, spoke independently of each other and provided details that were corroborated by others.

The source of this putative scandal is two disgruntled former aides, who are flatly contradicted by both McCain and Iseman, as well as by McCain’s real “top advisers” Mark Salter and Rick Davis:

Mr. Davis and Mark Salter, Mr. McCain’s top strategists in both of his presidential campaigns, disputed accounts from the former associates and aides and said they did not discuss Ms. Iseman with the senator or colleagues.

“I never had any good reason to think that the relationship was anything other than professional, a friendly professional relationship,” Mr. Salter said in an interview.

The real purpose of rehashing old rumors is to undermine McCain’s image as a fighter of political corruption. Most of the meat in the story actually has to do with the Keating Five scandal, in which McCain was implicated, and which the NYT seems to think is news despite being two decades old. John Hinderaker sums up the NYT’s journalistic judgment this way:

On Fox News tonight, Bob Bennett, who is representing McCain with respect to the Times story–that doesn’t mean that he will sue the newspaper, as that is impossible under current law–said that the Times had lowered its standards by printing this rather absurd smear. That is incorrect, of course. The Times is a mouthpiece for the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, nothing more. Its smear of McCain–not the last, to be sure–is entirely consistent with the editorial policies it has maintained for many years. Tomorrow’s story is just one more reminder of why no sophisticated person takes the Times seriously as a news source.

I think that’s about right. My guess is that the entire story was meant to do nothing more than cast some easily negotiated hurdles into McCain’s path so that the still-battling Democratic candidates have a chance to catch up. The Democrats are certainly disadvantaged by not having their nominee wrapped up yet. Anything that slows down McCain’s momentum helps the eventual Democratic candidate. This thinly-sourced, highly inferential NYT smear job sure seems designed to do just that.

Judging by the copious amounts of commentary on the non-story, perhaps the NYT succeeded in its goal. However, in this age of blogging, formidable push back is also available.

Aides to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) have released a remarkable 1,500-word document outlining what his campaign calls “some of the facts that were provided to The New York Times but did not end up in the story.”

Politico has the full statement, and lots more.