| As you can imagine, the frenzy around the New York Times' story on John McCain's too-cozy relationship with a much younger woman telecomm lobbyist is staggering. On your behalf, gentle readers, I have waded in the muck and brought to you the pearls.
Or, as the New York Daily News so ably said, "Get ready for the feeding frenzy, with the press as the sharks and John McCain as the bloody chum."
Indeed. |
| First, what's the story? Generally, leftys seem unconcerned about McCain possibly schtupping a much younger woman - although Keith Olberman, for one, is hankering to compare the scandal to Clinton-Lewinsky. I don't see it personally; but if that meme somehow sticks in the national consciousness, that probably won't help Clinton's campaign, either.
No, the real story for most is the impropriety of dallying - in any personal fashion - with a lobbyist, and then subsequently doing special favors for her clients. Matthew Yglesias sums the story up thusly:
Basically, in exchange for money and freebies, McCain sought to intervene in a federal regulatory process in favor of a company that had provided him with tens of thousands of dollars in cash and services. He could try to plead naiveté, but in light of the hot water he got into with the Keating Five affair, which had the exactly same structure, he clearly knew what he was doing and knew that it was wrong. Now whether or not some guy gets to buy some TV station in Pittsburgh or not isn't a big deal as such, but it's an example of how dubious McCain's "straight talk" persona is. What's more, I think we can all agree that the subversion of the basic functioning of the federal government (see, e.g., US Attorneys scandal, FEMA, etc.) has been a major problem during the Bush years and we see here that McCain takes a Bush-like attitude to the integrity of these processes.
McCain's influence peddling is a bigger deal than conservatives would have you believe, opines Instapundit's Megan McArdle:
Fox News has these details, and is making it sound like this is not a big deal, because the senator did not press for an outcome, but only a speedy resolution. But regulatory uncertainty is very costly for firms; just getting your case jumped to the head of the line could be a pretty valuable special favor. It doesn't cost the rest of us much, of course--unless we happen to work for the company whose case was delayed while everyone dropped everything to deal with the senator's request.
So...what's the deal with the timing, purpose behind the story? While the right is generally using the story as a call to arms to defend McCain - a godsend for folks like Limbaugh, who, having smeared McCain's integrity up and down the AM dial, now have an excuse to support their probable general-election candidate - it appears that neither Democrats nor the New York Times "orchestrated" the news or the timing.
The interesting thing is that the New York Times was sitting on this story, apparently because of stiff resistance from the McCain campaign, and published only in fear of getting scooped by other publications. Rumor has The New Republic front and center, and TNR's Noam Scheiber acknowledged it was preparing a story about infighting at the Times over that story - which was published today, and which confirms that McCain's unusually fierce legal resistance delayed the story.
But here's the deal, as the Pensito Review's Jon Ponder notes, the timing and sources behind the story suggest that this was a GOP hit on McCain. GOP ex-staffers are the sources; the timing of the leak - if the story hadn't been delayed by McCain - would've meant the story would have hit in December, just before the primary season got away.
Sort of sweet justice, eh? In an election in which the prohibitive favorite is the favorite largely because he wants to get away from the vicious, partisan attack-style politics of the past, it's appropriate somehow the likely GOP nominee's campaign might fall apart as a result of a misfired hit job from his own party... |
