Todd,
I may be to cynical, but who really benefitted from this story?

Could this be the reason Huckabee is still in the race, knowing that this story, may have an impact after all?

or could it be a deliberate plant to create a sympathy vote, for the "Survivor"

(Johnny (FairPlay)) McCain.

(For those unfamilar with the TV show "Survivor", a contestant named Johnny Fairplay, told the other members that his poor grandmother had passed away, creating sympathy, amongst the group of jurist. Eventually being exposed as having lied, planting the story for symapthy)

Chuckie: Huck has already said he believes Schmuck Talk and his character. Of course, as we talk, he's winging to Colorado Springs to talk to James Dobson, so a strategy shift may be afoot.

Ellen, it may have hit its mark, but it could have done better.

Per Todd, I suggest this as what would have been a much better breakout.

A. You commit to running a multi-part story. The drip, drip, drip of political scandal on the installment plan is a killer.

B. Part one is something like Isikoff wrote. No hints of Schmuck Talk using his schmuck, just the fiscal angle. Tie back to Keating Five and parallels more strongly, another way the actual NYT story was kind of weak. Meanwhile, you press your sources to talk more, even if obliquely, about the hanky-panky. Also meanwhile, see if you can find a further pattern. Iserman jumped from secretary to partner awfully quickly. See if there's fire behind the smoke there.

C. Then, if it's as solid as what the NYT actually ran, especially if the sources gave you even an ounce of additional quotes, you run the hanky-panky as part two. Tie back to McCain's history with ex-wife No. 1. Whether Iserman's career ladder-climb was due to office sex or whatever, run that in a sidebar.

D. By this time, with the two stories running 3-7 days apart, more stuff to investigate will probably come over somebody's transom.

Is this story still even relevant in light of McCain announcing that he's "moving on?"

I respectfully disagree. Re-read the first sentence of the article -- the four bylines and untold editors (very smart and clever people) knew exactly what they were doing and did not conceal it. The first sentence should be used as an example in journalism schools about what should not be done when the narrative gets ahead of the facts.

The opening sentence states: “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.”

Let’s parse the sentence.

“A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers” – the phrase “with him” implies that they accompanied each other and went to the fundraisers together, as if on a date. But staffers have made it clear that they both attended fund-raisers, but this is different from attending the fund-raisers “with” each other. The first phrase of the first sentence was designed to bolster the impression of an intimate relationship, when none was actually shown by the article.

“A female lobbyist . . . [was] visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet.” This is what lobbyists do for a living – they visit legislative offices and meet with legislators in all sorts of settings (yes, even on corporate jets). If this were a male lobbyist, the meetings would be wholly unexceptional.

“Convinced the relationship had become romantic” – this is the core of the article and key to the most sensational claim. The text of the article, however, does not support the conclusion that anyone was “convinced” that there was a romantic relationship. All the body of the article states is that two unidentified ex-staffers said they had a “concern” about such a romantic link. The NYT inflated a “concern” into a conviction. They turned an opinion or “concern” about the possibility of such a relationship into an alleged fact that such a relationship existed. This was more than an exaggeration; it was flatly inaccurate even assuming the body of the article was sound.

“Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself . . . privately warning her away.” This is an apparent shorthand reference to the Weaver quote. The NYT misused the Weaver quote. After asserting the claim about the staffers’ conviction that there was “romantic” link, the NYT suggests that the staffer (Weaver) intervened by privately warning her away. In fact, Weaver had no concern about any alleged romantic relationship; he was only concerned that she was claiming “strong ties” with the Senator’s office that did not exist. Weaver was doing what he was supposed to do – privately acting to protect the campaign from false claims of influence. The NYT did not point out the real reason for Weaver’s "intervention" but left readers with the false impression that he was one of the staffers who was “convinced” that there was a romantic relationship and he intervened to prevent a sex scandal. This innuendo was false.
http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/02/john_weaver_on_the_record.php

The “top advisers” allegedly acted by “instructing staff members to block the woman’s access” – but we are not told who these “staff members” were, where they worked, how and when the instructions were communicated, on whose authority the instructions were given, and whether the instructions were followed. The involvement of low level “staff members” in blocking access (according to the NYT) considerably expands the circle of knowledge about the matter. Where are the witnesses like secretaries? The utter lack of detail casts doubt on the claim.

“several people involved in the campaign said” – this is misleading because it suggests the sources are currently “involved in the campaign” but we know that the “people” are ex-staffers on the 2000 campaign, not people “involved” (present tense) in any campaign.

The ex-staffers “repeatedly confront[ed] him” – if this is true, where are the details? When and where were the confrontations? Who was present? Did the NYT insist on seeing the schedules for the days of the “confrontations” to confirm whether the Senator and the “confronters” were even in the same city on the relevant days? Top advisers to the campaign, and the Senator himself, deny the claim. Again, the lack of detail casts doubt on the claim.

In short, the opening sentence, standing alone, shows that four reporters (and editors) word-smithed the first sentence to twist and contort the facts to fit a narrative that they could not establish in the body of the article.

Given the huge gap between its reputation and its perforance in news reporting, The Times is easily the worst newspaper in the United States. Nothing in its news pages can be assumed to be accurate, written in good faith, or taken at face value. Indeed, this article, as one of the above posters pointed out has NO face value.

The sex part doesn't even rise to the level of gossip. An anonymous source said that some unnamed aides were worried 8 years ago that McCain might be having an affair? Suzy Knickerbocker wouldn't print that. And the Times puts it on the front page!

yeah and maybe we can get Ellen to throw a mikey in The Shmucks drink and really get him to spill his guts out....

Hey how do you get to put a Pic/avatar by your post...??

I don't think the report that McCain has provided quo for quid is the least revelatory, nor elicit more than a collective public yawn. After all legal bribery is congressional SOP. Senator Rockefeller took $42,000 of quid from Verison and ATT and is working mightily to provide the immunity quo.

What irritates the public and journalists, though, is hypocrisy; and, thus, I think this story will hang around a while. During the 2000 campaign McCain released documents indicating that since 1997 he had written 15 letters to regulatory agencies on behalf of contributors.

It's the phoniness that will be damaging.

So, now, we find out Honest John went to bat for "Swift Boating" Sinclair Broadcasting.

In responding online to the 4000+ questions NYT received, NYT executive editor Bill Keller referred to "...the arduous and complicated process that produced an important story."

Yeah, right(!) Other than NYT's suspicious decision to print innuendo, this was neither important, nor even a story.

As others comments noted, what NYT put on the FRONT PAGE was this: "SOMEBODY, eight years ago, who worked for somebody ELSE, was concerned that SOMEthing MIGHT be going on."

With news organizations as skewed as FOX, at least you know you are Not getting fair and balanced news unless the weather report is on. It's a much bigger insult when organizations like the Times give balanced, legitimate news on things like the latest food or medical devices, then try to leverage that credibility to manipulate readers on really key issues of politics and power.

I will be blantantly partisan and enjoy how the truly salient question become more resonant by bordering with salatious:

"how intimately powerful senators collaborate with lobbyists"

is the operative word "collaborate" or "intimately"?

And now this Senator is accused of being in bed with the very industries he regulates as chairman of committees. Figuratively, of course.

Do lobbyists massage ego of politicians they lobby, or is it something more than that?