McCain Reaction/Speculation Round Up
Posted by: Neocon in 2008 Race, Conservatism, Media Bias, RepublicansMcCain’s camp is ready to “go to war” over it.
John McCain’s campaign promised to “go to war” against The New York Times Wednesday night after the newspaper posted its long-awaited story on McCain’s alleged relationship with a telecom lobbyist. Both McCain and the woman in question denied having a romantic relationship.
The story, word of which first leaked to the Drudge Report in December, relies on anonymous sources tied to McCain who said the lobbyist was warned to keep her distance to the senator in the run-up to his first presidential bid.
…
“It is a shame that The New York Times has lowered its standards to engage in a hit and run smear campaign,” communications director Jill Hazelbaker said in a prepared statement sent about an hour after the Times posted their story online. “John McCain has a 24-year record of serving our country with honor and integrity. He has never violated the public trust, never done favors for special interests or lobbyists, and he will not allow a smear campaign to distract from the issues at stake in this election.”
Byron York talked to John Weaver, the supposedly disgruntled ex-McCain campaign official. Weaver seems to have said that he only spoke to Vicki Iseman about possible perceptions of conflicts of interest based on her talk about town. This falls in line with McCain’s denial today that anyone talked to him about his contact with Vicki Iseman seeming inappropriate. Weaver also said he never suspected anything romantic between the two.
“The discussion lasted all of five or six minutes in which I told her to cut that stuff out,” Weaver told me. “I said, ‘You need to stop this.’” Iseman’s response, according to Weaver: “She was not happy.”
It is not all that unusual for lobbyists to spread the word that they have good access with lawmakers; it’s the currency of the realm in that business. “If a newspaper is going to run stories about lobbyists who claim they have special relationships with members of Congress, it will run out of ink,” Weaver said.
Ed Morrissey sums it up thus far:
Got that? Nothing actually happened. The big story here is that there may have been an “appearance” of a “close bond”.
And where did the Times get this information? Well, you have to read past the rehash of the Keating Five scandal of the mid-1980s, past a strange accusation involving McCain’s use of direct flights from Washington to Phoenix, and past his crusade to clean up Washington through the BCRA (which I adamantly opposed and still do) to get to the Slimes’ sourcing. It turns out that they talked to two anonymous former staffers — neither of whom allege that the relationship actually became romantic — and who describe themselves as disgruntled.
Great sourcing there, guys. Way to corroborate a non-story.
Hot Air links to video of Joy Behar of all people asking a question that is very relevant, even if it isn’t worded very well. Joy wonders if it is possible that the right-wing of the Republican party might have been behind leaking this in order to cut his legs off.
Apparently the Romney camp knew about the story. Surely they could have forced this out into the open if they wanted to.
Another Hot Air post pondering the same thing about the Huckster’s campaign.
Update: Is this the “last twist” that Huck’s been counting on to deliver him the nomination? The story’s been in the works for months and has been teased on Drudge more than once. Huck’s staffers haven’t been shy in the past about hinting at secret knowledge of scandals set to break. Huck probably hung around hoping that the bomb would drop and would be big enough to knock Maverick out of the race, leaving him the last man standing.
Even Rush is coming to McCain’s defense. Of course, everyone has known that the mainstream media would turn on McCain eventually, but Rush has tried to remind people of this for the longest time.
“You’re surprised that Page Six-type gossip is on the front page of The New York Times?” Limbaugh asked as he began his radio show. “Where have you been? How in the world can anybody be surprised?”
Limbaugh said earlier in an e-mail to Politico that the Times article about McCain’s relationship with a female lobbyist was a clear case of “the drive-by media … trying to take him out.”
…
“Is he going to learn the right lesson from this?” Limbaugh asked. “The lesson is that liberals are to be defeated.”
Limbaugh wrote in an e-mail to Politico: “The story is not the story. The story is the drive-by media turning on its favorite maverick and trying to take him out. The media picked the GOP’s candidate, the NYT endorsed him while they sat on this story, and is now, with utter predictability, trying to destroy him.”
Limbaugh added: “This is what you get when you walk across the aisle and try to make these people your friends. I’m not surprised in the least that the NYT would try to take out John McCain. Predicted this, in fact, way back in the early 2000s. Sen. McCain courted the media, cultivated them, even bragged that the media was his ‘base.’ I cringed when I heard it because the media turning on McCain was as predictable as the sun rising in the morning.”
The Sundries Shack also sees this as a rallying point for McCain.
Stop the ACLU says it’s all based on lies and gossip.
Alarming News thinks this is all nothing because if there was anything to it we’d be reading about it this October, not now.
FullosseousFlap also thinks it’s nothing.
The New Republic has a piece out today on the New York Times reluctance to run the story. The rumors are that the NYT released the story last night because they were afraid of getting scooped by The New Republic, who had already had their piece set of publication. So did the New York Times run with something they weren’t confident about simply to not waste their research and spent resources?
Michelle has more on the TNR aspect.
Some confirmation of the scooped theory over at Red State, where they’ve got quotes from Democrat Bob Bennett, previous council to President Clinton and current McCain lawyer, who calls this a “hatchet job.”
Sister Toldjah quotes Lanny Davis, Clintonista extraordinare, who is crying foul on the story. Interesting.
QandO explains how the left has reacted to similar ‘nothing there’ stories. Also a link to a lefty blogger who sees the double standard.
Patterico’s headline says it all.
