Newspaper Under Fire

All right, let's see what others are saying.

Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum objects to "the transparent thinness of the reporting. If the Times has evidence that McCain had an affair, they should come out with it. If they have evidence that he showed improper favoritism toward a lobbyist, they should come out with that, too. The fact that they do neither -- most of the article rehashes old stories -- must mean they don't have anything at all; perhaps they are hoping the blogosphere will produce it. The only 'evidence' comes from two anonymous aides who claim they told Iseman to buzz off and stop distracting their boss -- behavior which strikes me as quite normal and rather admirable. Sounds like they were doing their job.

"Thanks to lack of evidence, the article reads not like an exposé but like an elaborate and extended piece of insinuation. Surely this must will damage the New York Times more than John McCain: Who will believe their reporting on him now?"

Power Line's John Hinderaker labels it a smear:

"What is most striking . . . if you actually read the story, is how thin it is. It's mostly about the Keating Five scandal, which dates to the late 1980s. The 'news' that gives the story a hook has to do with McCain's friendship with a pretty blonde lobbyist that apparently ended in 2000. As for the purported affair, the Times offers zero evidence. This line sums up, I think, the absurdity of the paper's attempt to cobble together an anti-McCain story out of these widely-separated elements:

" It had been just a decade since an official favor for a friend with regulatory problems had nearly ended Mr. McCain's political career by ensnaring him in the Keating Five scandal.

"Just a decade! Every ten years, McCain does something that the Times can unfairly paint as inappropriate."

National Review's Rich Lowry is in the same camp:

"The Times doesn't have the goods -- at least from what's in the story -- and shouldn't have run it. Let's be honest: this story is all about the alleged affair, and all the Keating Five and campaign finance reform re-hash is window dressing . . .

"What does 'behaving inappropriately' mean? And what were the details? A lot hangs on this passage and it's extremely vaporous."

Slate's Jack Shafer says the Times piece, while flawed, makes a contribution:

"The story portrays McCain as way too close to lobbyist Iseman and cites unnamed advisers who believe that the relationship was 'romantic,' although McCain and Iseman deny that specific allegation. The piece fails for [some] critics because the newspaper does not produce sheets from McCain and Iseman's enseamed bed to prove their intimacy . . .