Can anyone who is actually reading the NY Times these days enlighten me as to the timing of the stories on McCain and that lobbiest (9 years ago)? What's the news peg for those stories, did something happen recently (other than the Times not wanting him to be president)? Update: The New Republic has a whole story on the drama behind the Times story.
Update again: The NYT's ombudsman editor took the big editors (including Keller, the big boss) to task over the McCain story. But what the public editor leaves out of his piece and what is the crucial point here (if you ask people including Tom and certainly including myself), is the following: Media, stop reporting on the affairs people are having! We do not care! They have a right to have affairs in private! Don't make national politics a contest to see who had an affair!
Assume McCain was paling around with a lobbiest and McCain's lackys were like, 'dude, you have got to stop hanging out with her, the press will think you are having an affair': What, in that situation, do I as a reader of the NYT want to know? Nothing! Noooothing! It wouldn't have been enough to have an email proving the affair, as the public editor suggests. For me, you'd need an email proving McCain broke lobbying regulations with respect to this particular lobbiest, for whatever reason, whether because she's his girlfriend, his sister, whatever. The affair is his own affair, so to speak, and I don't want to know about it.
Keller, the head editor, should resign over this. It was a terrible judgment call to publish the story.
On a related note:
Eight years ago...
Mom: Some people forget that McCain was one of the Keating Five. But I will never forget. He is trying to live it down, but I will not forget.
Yesterday
Me: Mom, McCain was one of the Keating Five! I totally forgot!
Mom: Me too!
3 comments:
It was 20 years ago, so I doubt that anything particularly new is going to come up.
I think it's that he's the front-runner for the Republican nomination. So maybe the Times was planning to run a story to remind people like you and your mother (and to inform people like me who hadn't heard about it somehow). And then maybe, while the reporter was doing background, someone said something that made it seem more sensational.
Like maybe they have the lobbyest saying that they were having an affair. That's what they were talking about on NPR. Oooh! Extra-marital sex 20 years ago! SCAAAANDAL!
As though that's really more scandalous than selling out your country for a share of $1.3 million.
This is so gonna disappointment flatmate. He loves McCain.
I'm gonna have fun with this.
When are you going to post about your trip to Crazy Canada?
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