The Caucus, a politics blog witten by the staff of the New York Times, calls James Johnson, the fellow who just resigned from Obama's VP search committee, "a leading member of the vice-presidential search team." And the headline of this piece is, "Obama's Top Vetter Resigns." They're implying that he is a vital, highly placed member of the Obama team. No wonder McCain's side wants to skewer him. The problem is that Johnson is not the vital cog the Times, McCain, the Washington Post, and many other media imply that he is.

John Kerry explains,

Jim Johnson is a very experienced, very discreet, very capable individual who is performing a voluntary function without pay, without any interest. He's not seeking a job, and, you know, he is acting completely independently to gather information about those somebody. And that's it. That is the full measure of this.... (http://the caucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/obamas-top-vetter-resigns/)

The author, Kate Phillips, by quoting Kerry, creates the impression of objectivity. But she's already taken her attack position in the headline and opening statements. She continues the attack by outlining all of Johnson's sins, which is a standard technique in guilt by association ploys. You spend a few sentences characterizing the relationship between the two parties and much more verbiage on the sins of the person with whom the candidate is associated.

The sins fulminate in the mind, and the nature of the relationship...well, it really doesn't matter. All that's needed to make the charge stick in the minds of non-politics-junkie swing voters is some relationship, any relationship. Of course, as I've pointed out, the Times characterizes the relationship as intimate and important by using the words, "top" and "leading." So this guilt by association attack is especially compelling.

It's time to start calling these subtle, implied fabrications what they are--lies. Hit piece authors of prominent news organizations hide behind a labyrinth of subtle defenses, like the argument that Ms. Kate included Kerry's demurrer, but the lies neutralize any so-called attempts at balance. The net effect is that Obama is impugned, which is what the author seems to have intended.

Maybe she only wanted to create the appearance of balance and would be surprised to discover that readers thought she was attacking. I've seen that conception of what passes for balanced journalism and suspect that, even if such pieces aren't intended as attacks, they have that effect under the guise of treating both sides equally.