John McCain = Roger Clemens

John Weaver must be misremembering.

Romney suspended his campaign. If the party wants to dump McCain, Romney can get back in. I imagine the party power brokers will wait and see how durable the "legs" are on this story.

Really felt like McCain was lying his ass off in that presser, didn't it? He said he's never done anything, ever, to violate the public trust... Keating, anyone? And he said his aides never approached him about the relationship, which seems improbable unless Weaver's statements to the Times were totally fabricated. He also flat-out lied and said he'd never spoken directly to the Times about the story before he corrected himself and admitted he had a one-on-one phone call with Keller. But I suspect that the fact that he stood confidently and answered reporters' questions will be what most commentators focus on, and they'll let him off the hook. Apparently that's all it takes to look like a "straight talker" these days.

Not a Romney fan, but just curious. Did he "suspend" his campaign which may mean that he could re-enter the race?

As I recall, Romney did not "drop out" he "suspended" his campaign. I can remember how well Gonzales parsed his words when testifying and that makes me wonder about why Mittens suspended. Then, with his endorsement of McCain, what would McCain do if this situation gets legs and walks over J. Sydney?

I'll have to put on my tin foil cap to see if anything comes to me.

After the way McCain bashed the Times, I'm sure we'll get much more information from the Times and other pubs. As Charles Kaiser wrote on Radar, others were ready to break this story as well. There has to be more to it that we haven't heard yet.

theres a pretty good back and forth on this over at cnn of all places. theres video of a mccain talking points guy from just now repeating the “smear” mantra. oddly enough he had a ready answer for all the little details that the cnn gal pitched at him, including “it’s important not to look at the events back in 2000 through the prism of 2008 laws” as a response to mccain taking four trips on the lobbyist client’s private jet. hmmmm.
oh yeah, he also wrote the fcc letter shortly after receiving 20k in contributions from her client.

I like McCain's defense: I have close relationships with lots of Washington lobbyists. Winner! Love the straight talk.

I don't know - this is a weird story, the way its written and the way it's presented. I'm not a fan of McCain's and would much rather have Obama face Huckabee or Mitt in the general. But...

The Times bringing in speculation about an affair is strange - the info given is way too skimpy and throws the whole story into an awkward spin. It also makes it a bigger story all around - certainly bigger than it would have been had it only raised questions about McCain's honesty in his dealings with lobbyists. That would be a legit question but it wouldn't have caused the uproar in the MSM and it would not have resulted in a hastily arranged press conference by McCain.

There's something that feels inadequate about this as a piece of journalism. I don't know where it's all going to lead, what else might come out. But I can't help thinking - is the Times going to further harm it's reputation with this story after all the hits they've taken in the last few years? I'm left wondering what's going on at that newspaper more than what's going on with McCain.

McCain appeared to be nervous and tentative in his press conference. I'm wondering if more is about to come out.

I watched the press conference on CNN and afterward there was Mr. Las Vegas himself, Bill Bennett, remarking how the Times has now united conservatives into McCain's corner. So, I flipped to MSNBC and heard Pat Buchanan say the very same thing and then a press release from Brent "Bozo" Bozell was read over the air saying verbatim the same thing. So, the Right has its narrative, the NY Times used anonymous sources to smear a patriotic American and has succeeded in uniting conservatives against the evil liberal NY Times.

The sex, if true, is bad, but I think it's not remotely the most dangerous part of the story for McCain. As someone who follows politics pretty closely, I was shocked by just how ethically-challenged this guy is. I knew about the Keating 5, but hadn't realized how extensive his involvement and how compromised he was by it. And since then, he's gotten into trouble time and again. His strongest suit is his integrity. Strip that away and he's just another old white guy with bad ideas. Experience doesn't count for much if your judgment sucks. The Dems can tie his ethics issues to the war, his flip-flops on taxes and torture, and even the fact he doesn't seem to know or care to know much about the economy. This is a truly dangerous story for McCain, regardless of whether there's a stained dress lurking in someone's closet.

Just like to point out that McCain's communication director Jill Hazelbaker, who we are going to be seeing a lot of in the coming days, has a history of sock-puppetry and deceit that was exposed by the NYT back in Sept 2006.

McCain took a bit of heat for hiring her in the first place - not a great idea having an ethically challenged spokesperson at a time like this.

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/9/21/174/29062

Somebody's saying it was a liberal group that got this story going. I'm betting it was actually the right wing conservatives that slipped it to NYT's. They do NOT like McCain and would do anything to STOP him. The GOP establishment however, wanted McCain, so they got Bennett to talk the NYT's into HOLDING the story till AFTER McCain had a good hold of the nomination.

Who best would know about a possible scandal in a GOP 2000 campaign? The GOP, that's who.

My guess is, Huckabee and Romney knew nothing about this. If I were Huckabee, especially, I'd be questioning the delayed printing of this report FRONT AND CENTER. Who knows, maybe he'll win Texas and Ohio?

For the longest time McCain has been the darling of the MSM, the guy they like to fawn over.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the NYT, WaPo, WSJ, cable news, etc.

Assuming McCain was unfaithful to his wife...what do you think it feels like to convict a man for infidelity when you know you would do the exact same thing in his shoes:

http://tinyurl.com/2m7ngl

the new republic was about to publish a story about why the NYT wasnt publishing it, as it had been a topic of discussion in media circles around town since december.

Josh Marshall wrote:

"We know that the McCain Camp went to the mattresses to get this story spiked back in December. And some heavy legal muscle was apparently brought to bear. When a story has to go through that much lawyering it often comes out pretty stilted and with some obvious lacunae. And this one definitely qualifies."

Josh, David, could you expand on this? A link to an earlier story, perhaps or place elsewhere on the web where this is stuff is dealt with?

More generally, it would be nice to have a body of examples of what kinds of "influence" and lawyering kills, warps and delays important stories in the NYTs and other major media.

To expose what is known about such tactics in each instance -- or even that in real time such threats are being brought to bear, if get and can use such insider knowledge, will help increase timeliness and transparency in the mainstream media, and help enlighten naifs like myself....

We could better press the papers' Ombud'sfolk if we had something to hang our hats on...

Thanks!
Mich L

Obviously, the fact that the NYT's protected McCain for so long is proof of their liberal agenda to sink him. After endorsing him. When they were working on a story about literally being in bed with lobbyists.

Huckabee's miracle has arrived, in very mysterious ways.

At least we know whose side God is on: Not McCain's.

Since Cindy McCain decided that she wanted to tell us about how she has always been very proud of her country, then we should now ask, should her country be proud of Cindy. Read the following report from Salon laying out Cindy McCains' sordid past.

salon.com > News Oct. 18, 1999
URL: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/10/18/drugs

How Cindy McCain was outed for drug addiction

When an attempt to get tough with a whistleblower backfired in 1994, the McCain spin machine went into overdrive, and the candidate's wife confessed to problems the media was already poised to reveal.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Amy Silverman

GOP presidential candidate John McCain's wife Cindy took to the airwaves last week, recounting for Jane Pauley (on "Dateline") and Diane Sawyer (on "Good Morning America") the tale of her onetime addiction to Percocet and Vicodin, and the fact that she stole the drugs from her own nonprofit medical relief organization.

It was a brave and obviously painful thing to do.

It was also vintage McCain media manipulation.

I had d�j� vu watching Cindy McCain on television, perky in a purple suit with tinted pearls to match. It was so reminiscent of the summer day in 1994 when suddenly, years after she'd claimed to have kicked her habit, McCain decided to come clean to the world about her addiction to prescription painkillers.

I believe she wore red that day. She granted semi-exclusive interviews to one TV station and three daily newspaper reporters in Arizona, tearfully recalling her addiction, which came about after painful back and knee problems and was exacerbated by the stress of the Keating Five banking scandal that had ensnared her husband. To make matters worse, McCain admitted, she had stolen the drugs from the American Voluntary Medical Team, her own charity, and had been investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The local press cooed over her hard-luck story. One of the four journalists spoon-fed the story -- Doug McEachern, then a reporter for Tribune Newspapers, now a columnist with the Arizona Republic (and, it must be added, normally much more acerbic) -- wrote this rather typical lead:

"She was blonde and beautiful. A rich man's daughter who became a politically powerful man's wife. She had it all, including an insidious addiction to drugs that sapped the beauty from her life like a spider on a butterfly."

What McEachern and the others didn't know was that, far from being a simple, honest admission designed to clear her conscience and help other addicts, Cindy McCain's storytelling had been orchestrated by Jay Smith, then John McCain's Washington campaign media advisor. And it was intended to divert attention from a different story, a story that was getting quite messy.

I know, because I had been working on that story for months at Phoenix New Times. I had finally tracked down the public records that confirmed Cindy McCain's addiction and much more, and the McCains knew I was about to get them. Cindy's tale was released on the day the records were made public.

But the story I was pursuing was not so much about Cindy McCain's unfortunate addiction. It was much more about her efforts to keep that story from coming to light, and the possible manipulation of the criminal justice system by her husband and his cohorts. The irony is that Cindy's secret would have stayed secret if John McCain's heavy-hitting lawyer, John Dowd (of D.C.'s Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld; his most recent claim to fame was serving as co-counsel for fellow partner Vernon Jordan during impeachment) hadn't heavy-handedly pulled out all the stops to protect the McCain family.

Dowd tried to get back at the man on Cindy McCain's staff, Tom Gosinski, who had blown the whistle on her drug pilfering to the DEA. But in the course of trying to get local law enforcement officials to investigate Gosinski -- Dowd and the McCains considered him an extortionist; others might call him a whistleblower -- Dowd set in motion a process that would eventually bring the whole sordid story to light. When that maneuver backfired, the McCain media machine went into overdrive to spin the story.

It's a story of unintended consequences. It's also a story of power politics and media manipulation that's very un-McCain-like -- if you believe his national media hagiography.

But both of Cindy McCain's staged, teary drug-addiction confessions have been vintage John McCain. His MO is this: Get the story out -- even if it's a negative story. Get it out first, with the spin you want, with the details you want and without the details you don't want.

McCain did it with the Keating Five, and with the story of the failure of his first marriage (Cindy is his second wife). So what you recall after the humble, honest interview, is not that McCain did favors for savings and loan failure Charlie Keating, or that he cheated on his wife, but instead what an upfront, righteous guy he is.

Candor is the McCain trademark, but what the journalists who slobber over the senator fail to realize is that the candor is premeditated and polished. John McCain shoots from the hip -- but only after carefully rehearsing the battle plan, to be sure he won't get shot himself.

This is the story of a time that strategy backfired, and yet the McCain machine still managed to contain the damage.

In the early 1990s, Tom Gosinski was the director of government and international affairs for the American Voluntary Medical Team, which did relief and medical volunteer work in third world countries.

Hired by Cindy McCain in 1991, Gosinski enjoyed his job, but he began to notice McCain's erratic behavior in the summer of 1992. In his journal, he wrote that he and others suspected the boss was addicted to painkillers and might have been stealing them from the organization.

From Gosinski's journal, July 27, 1992:

I have always wondered why John McCain has done nothing to fix the problem. He must either not see that a problem exists or ... not choose to do anything about it. It would seem that it would be in everyone's best interest to come to terms with the situation. And do whatever is necessary to fix it. There is so much at risk: The welfare of the children; John's political career; the integrity of Hensley & Company [Cindy's parents' business]; the welfare of Jim and Smitty Hensley [Cindy's parents]; and the health and happiness of Cindy McCain.

The aforementioned matters are of great concern to those directly involved but my main concern is the ability of AVMT to survive a major shake-up. If the DEA were to ever conduct an audit of AVMT's inventory, I am afraid of what the results might be ... It is because of [Cindy McCain's] willingness to jeopardize the credibility of those who work for her that I truly worry.

During my short tenure at AVMT I have been surrounded by what on the surface appears to be the ultimate all-American family. In reality, I am working for a very sad, lonely woman whose marriage of convenience to a U.S. Senator has driven her to: distance herself from friends; cover feelings of despair with drugs; and replace lonely moments with self-indulgences.

In his journal-writing over the next few months, Gosinski would alternately complain about Cindy McCain and express concern for her well-being.

In January 1993, McCain fired Gosinski. She told him that AVMT was having financial problems and couldn't afford him.

Gosinski had already come to suspect that Cindy McCain had gotten volunteer doctors with AVMT to sign prescriptions for her, and had used employees' names to fill them. Worried his own name had been used (he would eventually learn that it had), Gosinski approached DEA agents in the spring of 1993 to report McCain's suspicious behavior. The DEA launched an investigation.

Almost a year later, with the statute of limitations about to run out, Gosinski hired a labor attorney and sued Cindy McCain for wrongful termination. He intended to claim that she fired him because she suspected he knew about her addiction, but the lawsuit never got that far. Instead, Gosinski's attorney wrote to the McCains, asking for a settlement of $250,000.

Rumors about the untold details of the lawsuit hit the cocktail-party circuit that spring, but the story was locked up tight. As a federal criminal investigation, the DEA probe was completely secret; none of it was public record.

The entire story would likely have gone unreported if attorney John Dowd hadn't entered the picture. He wrote to Maricopa County attorney Richard Romley, a political ally of McCain, and asked him to investigate Gosinski for extortion.

"We believe that Mr. Gosinski is aware that in the past Cindy had an addiction to prescription painkillers ... Given Cindy's public position, exposure of this sensitive matter would harm her reputation, career, the operation of AVMT, and subject her to contempt and ridicule," Dowd wrote on April 28, 1994.

Thus began the inadvertent outing of Cindy McCain. Although the federal investigative materials were not public, the county investigative materials were. Romley launched an investigation, and one of the first things his people did, naturally, was ask the feds to turn over their investigative materials.

New Times finally got hold of the county investigative materials and we did our own story. So did the Arizona Republic, which was uncharacteristically aggressive, perhaps because the McCain machine had left the paper out of the loop on the story of Cindy's addiction.

Among the questions asked: Did Cindy McCain get preferential treatment by the feds? True, Cindy was a first-time offender, which partially explains the fact that she did no prison time; instead, she entered a diversion program. But at the time, defense lawyers told New Times that if Cindy McCain had been a poor minority and not married to a U.S. senator, she likely would have been locked up.

Did Gosinski intend to blackmail Cindy McCain? He told New Times he didn't. Other AVMT employees told county investigators that he did. But the time line makes extortion hard to believe, since Gosinski had already gone to the DEA before he brought his lawsuit against the McCains.

In any case, Tom Gosinski didn't out Cindy McCain. John Dowd did, and then Jay Smith was called in for the clean-up.

A few postscripts: Tom Gosinski left town shortly after Cindy McCain's story broke. By that time, his lawsuit had died, ignored. The county did not pursue the extortion investigation against him.

John Max Johnson, the doctor who had written the prescriptions for Cindy McCain, surrendered his medical license.

Cindy McCain still does relief work and raises the McCains' four children.

John McCain, of course, is running for president.

And only a handful of people remember the details of Cindy McCain's 1994 "outing" for drug addiction and drug pilfering, and the work of the McCain machine to protect her.
salon.com | Oct. 18, 1999

The New York Times record isn't a stellar one when it comes to investigative work. Whitewater, Wen Ho Lee, WMDs - just because it's printed in a newspaper doesn't make it necessarily truthful, accurate and fact checked.

Reporters and pundits love McCain - the press coverage on MSNBC this morning was one of a protective stance (if this had been Clinton they'd be calling for her to drop out of the race and possible impeachment from her senate seat) David Gregory was especially solicitous of the "truth" and "confirmation" in judging the veracity of the story. On CNN, the reporter covering the McCain press conference said, "McCain does what he always does, he answered all our questions" (it doesn't occur to them to check for accuracy in his answers, what's important to them is that they get a quote) so it doesn't look like there will be the same press pile on there would be if this were a dem.

John Weaver just phoned in to MSNBC. They quote him as not being the anonymous source. They quote him as saying he informed the McCain campaign of all his contact with the NYT in regard to this story. They unfotunately do not ask the obvious follow up question of whether it is true that he had a conference with Vicki Iseman about staying away from McCain. It looks like McCain hopes to go from denial to Prove it to that's yesterdays news with a heaping dollop of NYT liberal rag, look at the timing blah, blah, blah.

Of what, exactly, does the Times accuse McCain? There's no there there.

McCain's press conference should have consisted of three words: "Go fuck yourselves."

(I'm glad he chose to dig his own hole, mind you.)

Hmmmmm.... McCain Muntiny... Why did Weaver wait so long to leave... There is more.... Anyway... effing a lobbyist puts him in the wrong place at the wrong time...

He did not have sex with that woman...Ms. Iseman.

And the Straight Jacket Express will just keep rolling along. But, as with Clinton, the doubt will be there (doubt is a good thing) and McCain will have to really watch his step. And even if this doesn't get legs, maybe the circumstances of the end of his first marriage will be brought to people's attention.

I think whether or not he was romantically involved with the LOBBYIST is relevant.

There is a special influence that people who are in a relationship have with each other.
It is the same reason people look closely at candidates spouses because they have a unique amount of influence. I am not saying it is because of the sex, it is because of the dynamics of the relationship.

If it was an aide or an advisor he was involved with, it wouldn't be a big deal. I personally didn't care what Bill did with Monica - what matters is how that influences their job.
The fact that this person was a Lobbyist- someone hired for the specific purpose of garnering influence with people in gov't, the nature of the relationship becomes relevant.

If he was involved with her, she would have opportunity to influence him in much more subtle ways than someone not involved.
Think of it this way, if Cindy McCain was a lobbyist -- an actively employed lobbyist and McCain's professional responses were favorable to her client's positions... wouldn't that have people up in arms?? It would be different if it was say Cindy's sister or a family friend, the link wouldn't be quite as strong.

Let me start with this. The New York Times ought to be ashamed of itself. If the evidence it had assembled justified the claim that McCain conducted an extra-marital affair with a lobbyist, it ought to have said so, and detailed its sources. If it did not, the story ought never have seen the light of day. The middle road chosen by the Times - reporting that McCain's aides believed him to be conducting an affair - is both unethical and cowardly. Either the Times believes those aides, or it does not - suspending judgment and relaying the claims is an abdication of its reportorial responsibilities. If this had been done to a Democratic candidate - if, for example, the NYT had fronted the rumors and innuendo swirling around John Edwards during the campaign - I think most posters here would have been justifiably outraged. Making a bad situation worse, it doesn't appear that the NYT suddenly came into new information that enabled Keller to greenlight the story. Rather, it seems that TNR (or perhaps The Politico or TIME) had gotten ahold of the story, and forced Keller's hand. Running a half-baked story just to preserve an exclusive is always a bad move.

Of course, the story has run. And we're left to assess it.

I don't have any doubt that the four reporters bylined on the piece, as well as the editors all the way up the masthead, were fully and entirely convinced that McCain did, in fact, have an affair. Without that sort of absolute conviction, the story never would have run. (Without evidence, it never should have run, but I already indulged in that rant.) So even if the article doesn't present it, I suspect the allegations are backed by sufficient circumstantial evidence to verify the charges. That means this story is going to have legs, and that reporters will keep after it until McCain acknowledges, at the very least, that he had an affair. A denial just pours further fuel on the fire. Now that it's in the open, it'll be easier to pursue. McCain had two options here: appear in public, with Cindy at his side, and announce that he had made mistakes but that his marriage is strong; or flat-out deny the allegations, unleashing his famous temper. He chose the wrong one.

But the damage from the story isn't limited to the affair in question. The real problem for McCain (and perhaps the reason he doesn't just admit some degree of impropriety and attempt to put this behind him) is that it would seem to match a pattern of dubious behavior that extends back for decades. McCain had succesfully relegated questions about his marital fidelity to the past, arguing that he had been wild and young once, but had since settled down. That's the strategy that more than one presidential candidate has used to dismiss youthful indiscretions, most notably our current president. This latest disclosure, however, means that media organizations are likely to run longer pieces as a means of 'setting the allegations in context,' and that's not good news for McCain.

The story goes something like this. When he returned from Vietnam, something was missing from his marriage. Perhaps, as some have whispered, it was that his first wife, Carol, had been the victim of a terrible accident, and wasn't as attractive as she had once been. That version seems unnecessarily vicious, though. There's a simpler explanation. He had been away from years, and passed through a hell that would change any man. Those years hadn't been easy on Carol, either. Two well-intentioned people can easily drift apart under such circumstances. And then there's Carol's own explanation: "The breakup of our marriage was not caused by my accident or Vietnam or any of those things. I don't know that it might not have happened if John had never been gone. I attribute it more to John turning forty and wanting to be twenty-five again than I do to anything else."

Whatever the reasons, most sources agree that the marriage was on rocky shoals. In his 1995 book, The Nightingale's Song, Robert Timberg wrote that McCain had taken to carousing and womanizing. He also repeats entirely unsubstantiated rumors that some of those liaisons involved women who were subordinate to McCain. The 42 year-old naval officer eventually met his future wife Cindy, then a 25 year-old blond heiress. They fell in love. By most accounts, McCain's marriage to Carol was largely suspended by the time he and Cindy met. He got divorced, and married Cindy a month later.

So that's the problem McCain faces. The Times is essentially alleging that for (at least) the second time in his life, he took up with a young, pretty blond despite being married (Iseman was 32 at the time; McCain was roughly 63). At the very least, he was spending significant time with a younger woman despite the appearance of impropriety, and ignoring the spread of rumors that his conduct touched off; that strikes me as remarkably similar to the rumors about his affairs with subordinates during his Navy days. And in both cases, the alleged misconduct is more serious than his admitted affair with his future wife - he is alleged to have violated not only his marriage vows, but more importantly, the responsibilities of his office.

Here's the de minimus reading of the Times piece: John McCain, who certainly ought to have known better, given the sordid rumors that have swirled about him at an earlier stage in his life, again placed himself in a compromising position with a woman not his wife, whose career depended on his goodwill. Even if they were just good friends, even if he just enjoyed the attention of a pretty, young blond woman who made him feel young again, even if they never crossed the line to physical intimacy, I think this story is incredibly damaging for a man running on his integrity. It calls into question his judgment, his honesty, and his maturity.

And, if anyone ever gets ahold of any actual evidence, as opposed to rumor and innuendo, things get a whole lot worse for the senator from Arizona.

FlyOnTheWall,
You're a victim of your own open-mind and even-handedness, as Dems are wont to do.

If the rumors about Edwards had not come from a tabloid or Drudge, but independently corroborated by Edwards own campaign aides who said Edwards admitted the affair was inappropriate, and if John Edwards had pushed hard for legislation a lobbyist, who spent a lot of time with Edwards, so much so that his own aides tell the NYT's the became disillusioned and confronted him about it and went out of the way to "save him from himself", I'd think it was worthy of running, at the very least.

Let's not fall victim to our knee-jerk, eat your own, embrace your enemies, look at how open-minded I am, pose. Let's look at the facts, shall we, and base our reaction on what we actually know, and ask ourselves how much harder we would come down on him if this were a Democrat.

I think this is a Gary Hart moment. Watching live on CSPAN, it made me think that the outright denials of something that is so fundamentally provable true/not true might spur the press (or TPM, hint, hint) do additional research. Just like Gary Hart in 1988. He didn't quite dare the press like Hart did, but it came close.

Now the question of quid pro quo of favors for campaign contributions/use of corporate jets can be fuzzed up. Were his letters only meant to "speed up" a slow process, or an implicit endorsement of Paxon, and other corporate client agendas? Thats the whole point of campaign finance laws--to obscure the reality of political influence on behalf of friends/contributors.

On the other hand, there is probably obtainable evidence of McCain/Ms. I "behaving inappropriately" in a more personal way. I doubt if all their inappropriate behavior occurred on corporate jets. It may be his private life, but like Gary Hart and Bill Clinton, he just made an explicit denial of cheating on his wife. Unlike Bill Clinton, he isn't a 2nd term president, and therefore not subject to another election.

If evidence is found pointing to "inappropriate behavior", his campaign is over.

This story is being carried by AP and WAPO -- thus there is definitely something to it. (I assume all of the above news organizations arrived at same story independently.)

I am not interested in sex part of it, but on whom McCain slept with. Also, if there were any favors exchanged for the 'irresponsible' behavior.

Two Words:

Newt Gingrich

Last year Newt laid out his plan to be "swept" into office when the Republicans had rejected the intentioned candidates.

This is the "steering" wheels of the bus hitting McCain. The "driving" wheels won't be far behind.

Newt's surrogates will begin knocking on the door shortly after that....

Alphonse (Al) Kada

My take -- the McCain camp provided the only news actually relevant to the affair -- that Weaver sent the woman packing in 99 -- now so they could control the fallout. By mixing the "close to lobbyists" with the "affair" story, they end up blurring what is a legitimate problem for him in the general (his ties to lobbyists) to what appears to be but is not a legitimate problem (that the NYT kinda reports that he mighta screwed around).

The campaign denies the lobbyist angle (eg, Wed night statement) and the VRWC denies the NYT/affair angle.

Ice9 -- I'm with you. This reminds me more of Gary Hart than Bill Clinton.

There was a story about a bunch of Washington reporters hanging around one day while nothing much was happening and Gary Hart was tooling up for a serious run at the White House. He was the early favorite, if I remember -- a "new ideas" Democrat.

Anyway, one of the reporters looked around at the others and said, "Who's going to do the story about the broads?"

My point is, if this affair was really happening, as I presume it was, then people around town knew about it. In particular, journalists knew, and journalist talk to each other. The question then becomes, How much do we "know," and how much do we really KNOW, and is this latter category weighty and solid enough to make a story out of?

With Hart, as I remember, the affair was a current ongoing thing, and it was possible to come up with some photos of the Senator and his lady friend aboard the good ship Hanky Panky or whatever it was.

With McCain the issue is a lot more problematic, because even if everyone inside the Beltway "knows" that it happened, can we really make the story stick? Because this is a powerful and persuasive man, and he's going to fight like hell for his political life, and his friends are going to help him, and you could end up with your ass in a sling if your story has any holes at all in it, or your sources start backtracking, or just if the thing doesn't pass the "smell test" with a lot of people.

So we'll see how this plays out. But to me, the fact that the Times and the Post have both run with this, and other publications seem to be out there in the wings with their own versions of the story, suggests that yes, the affair really did happen, at least.

I don't believe any of it. My suspicion is that McCain's lawyers got the Times to add the sex speculation, not take it out. It is much easier to defend against an untrue sex story than it is to defend against factual ethics issues.

Kasplan, Yes--and Gary Hart actually dared reporters to find incriminating evidence of his reported affairs. WHich they did, quite promptly.

McCain didn't go quite that far, but seeing as he is the presumptive nominee (and Hart wasn't) and that he just stated in utterly unambiguous terms that he did not have an affair with the lady, any strong evidence to the contrary will lead to the end of his candidacy--not for the affair of course, but the explicit lying.

I really don't understand the reason McCain wouldn't sue the Times if he really was innocent of "inapppropriate behavior." They just ran a front page story explicitly mentioning that possibility.

Like Josh, I hesitate to give the Times the benefit of the doubt. But it's curious: why does someone go out and hire the heavyweight of heavyweight lawyers if he's innocent?

The TNR is up with its backstory, a piece that apparently spooked the Times into finally running the story. Go read it.

I sent these comments in earlier to TPM via email

Congrats on your awards and recognition for important journalism. I think you and a McClatchy and a few other blogs should get ALL the journalism awards, Post dated to 2003 or so.

RE:The MccCain Affair

I think it is instructive to remember who we are dealing with here.

Our corporate media friends are the one's who haven't done a corporate malfeasance story in 15 years, and have been actively controlling everything we see and hear.In EVERY case, in EVERY instance...the truth is getting squelched and the lies are getting trumpeted. Sure, an occasional thing like Enron or Booosches War Record squirt past the censors, but the stories die from continual neck-stompings.
The Web is the only place that hasn't been completely censored.

TheTimes sat on story after story for the booosh admin about leaduptoIragmire. Or in the leadupto 2004 elections - all the stories they sat on!
Sat on all the stories about GeeDubs drinking, DUI, desertion from the armed services, business record, etc...
The one guy who did the story was IMMED. fired, Dan Rather. A huge icon and presence, they just got RID of one of the most wellknown and respected journalists left in the country.

Now McccCain is in "the fold" and doing everything he can to mesh himself to the "establishment" republican powers (read this to mean corporate handlers/shadow government). They can make stories go away, these folks.

If you take this thought experiment to the end.....that we only get told what they want us to know, how they want it told, and we never see the stuff that they don't want you to see.....
then it would be interesting how this plays out. If the story dies, gets SAT on, then you know the Establishment went to the mat for McCain

If the story gets told, it may mean the Establishment is once again going to screw McccCain. I have the queasy feeling he is not the patsy they need, too uncontrollable, too unpredictable. Romney, Giuliani, or Thompson was that guy.
Who knows what unfortunate thing might happen to old, rickety MccCain or his campaign jet? Pull-out for health reasons, etc.

But who am I....just speculating. I am the one who thought women undecideds were going to start a landslide breaking for Hilary after her NH win.

they typically 'suspend' the campaigns because they can't close them out until they wrap up all the loose ends, financial or legal, that such a large organization has. technically they campaign's not really over until they can close everything down, so some election rules require they 'suspend' it.

that said, Romney probably still has some bumper stickers and campaign office leases out there...

I'm pretty sure the fact that the NY Times ran the story was because it is losing market share to other media. Otherwise, after Clinton, how far can this sort of thing go?

Lobbyist fingerprints are everywhere. Claiming all kinds of wild puffery to get elected is one reason most Americans don't vote. They can't trust any politician, any businessman, or increasingly, and ominously, one another.

Look at all the cyncism on this site. How many people you "can't trust" unless you have a "muckraker." You wouldn't need a muckraker if people were "basically trustworthy," true?

You can't trust the MSM, either, or so I've read. And you also can't trust that other blog over there.

So I guess partisan politics are partisan politics. Your position depends on who you're gullible for during any given election cycle. And you attack the "other."

Will Sen. Obama lead us out of partisan politics without dropping us into anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian mind numbness?

The story here--sadly, it's not news--is that McCain remains a liar, panderer, and hypocrite. And neither the media nor the American people appear to be willing to call him to account for it.

Well....it's actually a LITTLE worse than this. Not only will McCain not be called to account for it, the nattering nabobs will continue to express outrage that poor, noble, upstanding, loyal, heroic John McCain and his loyal, upstanding (and currently drug- and felony-free?) wife have been subjected to such scurrilous treatment by the evil NYT.

The NYT story will thus garner support for McCain from the professional victims who call themselves 'conservatives.'

Was this a stunt to weaken Obama's chances? Five year ago, I would have thought that thinking that way was a sign of paranoid ideation. Given the breath-taking array of dirty tricks we have seen, and the fact that ALL of the mainstream media are now in the hands of a very few seriously bad corporations, I don't think it IS paranoid to wonder this.

The big question: why on earth do people continue to give the sleazeball McCain pass after pass?