Fit to Print? New York Times in Crosshairs for Report on McCain and Female Lobbyist
The New York Times is under fire after publishing a critical story about John McCain. (FNC)
The New York Times is in the crosshairs after publishing a lengthy and critical profile of John McCain Thursday that suggests — but does not outright say — that McCain had a romantic relationship with a female lobbyist and did favors for her clients from his position as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.
The New Republic published a long article Thursday afternoon on its Web site detailing the story behind the story and claiming, “What’s most remarkable about the article is that it appeared in the paper at all.”
The New Republic lambasted The New York Times for giving the green light, claiming the piece was “filled with awkward journalistic moves” and that it stepped around the suggested trysts with lobbyist Vicki Iseman by focusing on the debate in the McCain campaign itself about the relationship.
The presumptive GOP presidential nominee vehemently refuted the article with his wife, Cindy, by his side.
“I’m very disappointed in The New York Times piece. It’s not true,” McCain said at a press conference he called in Toledo, Ohio.
The Arizona senator, along with Hillary Clinton, was endorsed by the newspaper before their parties’ respective presidential primaries in New York on Feb. 5.
With only anecdotal descriptions and no evidence of an improper relationship, focus has shifted from suggestions of McCain’s supposed improprieties to questions over whether the Times should have ran the story.
“I don’t think that there is enough acknowledged sourcing for this story,” U.S. News & World Report Publisher Mort Zuckerman told FOX News, saying it is not news that follows the newspaper’s motto of being fit to print. “I really don’t think it rises to that level.”
A blog on The National Review Online said simply, “The Times doesn’t have the goods — at least from what’s in the story — and shouldn’t have run it.”
“The New York Times is giving the National Enquirer a bad name,” said Brent Bozell of the conservative watchdog Media Research Center. “The New York Times story today is all that about a story that is 10 years old. I have never seen anything like it in my life.”
The Times article described how McCain’s campaign aides kept him and Iseman apart during the 2000 election for fear they were giving the impression they were having an affair. It noted how McCain wrote to government regulators on behalf of a client of the lobbyist while he was Commerce Committee chairman.
The article had been rumored for months after a report on it surfaced on the Drudge Report in December.
The New Republic story reported that the idea for the McCain piece was hatched in November, when four reporters were thrown on the assignment. Over the ensuing months, the magazine reported that the story “pitted the reporters investigating the story, who believed they had nailed it, against executive editor Bill Keller, who believed they hadn’t.”
The Drudge piece sent the McCain article “into hiding,” but in the end, on Feb. 19, top Times editors and the paper’s attorneys gave the final draft a read-through and decided to publish, The New Republic reported.
“The Times ended up publishing a piece in which the institutional tensions about just what the story should be are palpable,” reads The New Republic article.
Keller released a statement Thursday saying, “On the substance, we think the story speaks for itself.
“On the timing, our policy is, we publish stories when they are ready. ‘Ready’ means the facts have been nailed down to our satisfaction, the subjects have all been given a full and fair chance to respond, and the reporting has been written up with all the proper context and caveats. This story was no exception. It was a long time in the works. It reached my desk late Tuesday afternoon. After a final edit and a routine check by our lawyers, we published it,” he said.
McCain’s aides have defended the Arizona senator in droves from the story. They argue that the newspaper published a deliberate smear under pressure from The New Republic, which two weeks ago called the campaign for comment on the Times story published Thursday.
“The New York Times — the newspaper that gave MoveOn.org a sweetheart deal to run advertisements attacking General Petraeus — has shown once again that it cannot exercise good journalistic judgment when it comes to dealing with a conservative Republican,” campaign manager Rick Davis said in an e-mail to supporters, urging them to contribute to the campaign “to counteract the liberal establishment and fight back against the New York Times. “
“All I can conclude is that this is the largest liberal newspaper in America trying to unfairly attack the integrity of the new conservative Republican nominee for president,” said McCain adviser Charlie Black. “There is no other good explanation for it.”
McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt called the report “a smear … it reads like a tabloid gossip sheet.”
“I think this is going to play badly for The New York Times and John McCain is going to be fine,” Schmidt said.
The Republican National Committee even used the story as a fundraising pitch of its own Thursday in an e-mail to donors.
McCain himself lamented that “this whole story is based on anonymous sources,” saying that could encompass any of the more than 100 aides he’s had contact with through the Commerce Committee.
The newspaper quoted anonymous aides as saying they had urged McCain and Iseman to stay away from each other prior to his failed presidential campaign in 2000.
A senior McCain adviser said after the magazine article was released that McCain isn’t planning on talking about the Times story any time soon.
“We answered every question they had this morning. That’s enough,” the adviser said.
Click here to read the article on the McCain article in The New Republic.
FOX News’ Mosheh Oinounou contributed to this report.
Nicole I agree with you. Just a little info on the Clintons idea of the economy. did you know that when the bought a house in New York so she could be a resident and run for office that the place didn’t have any living quarters for Bill’s Secret Service agent so the built a house on the property and charge the Federal Goverment or should I say the taxpayer rent. Guess what the taxpayer (you and I) are paying for thier house. Bill was the biggest discrace this country has ever had with all his little antics in the White House. Just the kind of people I would want in the White house again, HA
And Todd say what you want but those guys over there are protecting your butt if we don’t go after them over there they could be knocking on your door I can hear you whinning now. ” Why didn’t someone do something before they cam to my house.” Boo Hoo
No prob Nicole and no offense intended
Now, Dear Mr. Reagan
Welcome back from the dead, you are looking, um, remarkably, um, well, DEAD. Let’s agree on one thing, if McCain is a liar, Sen Clinton and Sen Obama are liars too. They are politicians, get it? The presidential elections are all about who can fool most of the people most of the time (I’m sure most readers have no idea that Honest Abe Lincoln came up with that description of politicians more than 150 years ago). There are basically 3 men standing as of tonight: Clinton, Obama and McCain. They are all rich, they are all owned by special interests, they all lie. They are all products of old-school politics. The way I see it McCain makes his pitch kind of believable and at least tries to take a position on issues. Clinton will say anything she thinks voters will want to hear. And Obama has some sort of automated tape player in his mouth that just keeps repeating “change” every 30 seconds. He has never once took a stand on any real issue. Of the three, none of whom are even remotely seriously qualified to be president of a major country like the U.S., McCain has enough real experience to muddle through the job. Clinton has no real experience but she is in a good position to be a puppet for all the political cronies of the last 20 years. Obama has zero experience, zero judgment and a phenomenal ability to preach and be our savior and messiah. It amazes me that those who say they are LEAST religious are the MOST likely to worship the Obama god. Every time I hear Obama tell us that the U.S. is messed up and we need “change” and they have never been proud of America I wonder why he chooses to live in our country? I mean, dude, if you hate it so much and so much is wrong with it, why don’t you just move away?
The New York Times is no diffferent than any of the liberal media in this country. They have already started their propaganda machine so as to help the democratis candidate in the upcoming election. They apparently think most people are idiots. The paper should be renamed ‘Pravda’. Enough time wasted on that rag. I don’t like McCain but the Times si a sickening branch of the democratic party that will evetually dry up.
“questions over whether the Times should have ran the story.”
The correct tense is: “should have run.” Today I run. Yesterday I ran. I have run.
OOPS…My bad!
*scary*
um, no Nicole, the stuff in SCREAMING all caps is by the radical left wing dude Jay. My replies to him are the ones in ( ) marks. Read it again honey. I am saying the complete opposite of what you are reading.
Todd is dumb…go back to school. You don’t understand anything about the economy if you think we are in this position because of Bush.
MCCAIN IS A BIG FAT LIAR!!!
There is no difference between him and Slick Willy. They are both life-long adulterers who are slime-ball politicians and will say anything and do anyone. THIS WILL NOT BE THE LAST SKELETON IN HIS CLOSET TO COME OUT!!!
He is a terrible man. He is NOT an American hero. He is a vicious and mean man who will lead this nation into areas far worse than any previous President.
He lied in Florida about Romney. He lied about his involvement with Mr. Keating. He is lying now about his involvement with this lobbyist. He is as crooked as they come with the temper of a man who should be in jail.
I just feel compelled to “educate” the naive Jay:
YOU REPUBLICAN IDIOTS…LET’S DO THE MATH. YOU ARE THE SAME IDIOTS THAT VOTED FOR BUSH (um, 50% of America voted for our President, what part of that don’t you understand?)…WHERE DID THAT GET US? YOU HAVE TO DECIDE WHETHER TO PAY YOUR MORTAGE OR FILL YOUR TANK AT THE PUMP (I see no difference for me on that from when Clinton was prez). WE ARE AT WAR WITH A COUNTRY FOR NO REASON AT ALL (Sorry you slept through 9/11, the rest of us kinda got kind of a different message). WHERE ARE THE WEAPONS AND/OR THE BIG THREAT THAT THE KIDS IN IRAQ ARE DYING FOR? (I’m sure this is way too complicated for you to understand. Um, sure, we are there only because of weapons. Oh, whatever). ALL YOU PEOPLE DO IS CRITICIZE AND CRIQUE ANYONE WHO IS ABOUT TRYING SOMETHING NEW AND BRINGIN HOPE TO ALL PEOPLE (”new” is a wonderful thing when you have never been proud of the country you live in, right?) …NOT JUST THE RICH ESTABLISHED ONES (I absolutely love this one. The Clintons are megarich, Obama makes more money a year than any of us will ever make in a lifetime, most Democrats are super-bazillionaires and they lie like a rug about how they understand the needs of us “real people”). TALK ABOUT SMEARING….REMEMBER THE MONICA LEWINSKY THING WITH CLINTON, YOU GUYS BLEW THAT UP LIKE THE HYDROGEN BOMB…AND WHO CARED? EXCEPT FOR YOU HYPOCRITES..NOBODY (yeah we cared. The President of the United States got a bj from a young intern in the Oval Office and lied about it. In the McCain story it is all make believe. There is a difference, Jay)…BECUASE CLINTON DID A GREAT JOB AS A PRESIDENT (again I ask and have never got a straight answer, name exactly what Bill Clinton did in 8 years, just ONE thing, please. I am serious, what did he do?) ANYONE COULD GET A JOB (I was out of work, so that is a lie, Jay), THE PRICE OF GAS WAS NO WHERE NEAR AS HIGH AS IT IS NOW (ever hear of inflation? The price of gas under Clinton was astronomical compared to the Nixon years, Jay)…YOU PEOPLE HAVE TO BE THE BIGGEST IDIOTS THAT UNFORTUNATELY HAVE THE RIGHT TO HAVE AN OPNION…AND I FEEL FOR YOU ALL…..SMARTEN UP PEOPLE, PLEASE START USING YOUR COMMON SENSE (summary … all you need as a little common sense, Jay, to understand how intolerent, bigoted and hateful calling people who care about the United States “idiots” is. Lift the veil and learn to be more understanding, dude.
The real story is John McCain’s relationship with the powerful media moguls. The lobbyist represented a huge media group why a beautiful blonde elementary school teacher and not a beautiful attorney something does not add up