What the NYT did was take a potential story that had little substance and made it into a story. They insinuated a potential extramarital affair without any evidence. They insinuated that McCain was doing legislative favors for Iseman when they produced no evidence.

Here in DC, the Washington Post seemed to position it as Ms. Iseman bragging that she had great access to McCains's office. If she did indeed say things like that and word got out, I could see how that would make aides nervous. But it's a far stretch to make all those insinuations.

As far as the medis talking about a candidate's marital life...I'm not so sure that it's always out of bounds. If you've got a hard right candidate talking about family values and he's screwing around or if you got a liberal candidate who makes women's rights a major issue (which includes showing women respect and subtle attacks on an opponent for not doing so), then, yeah, sometimes hypocrisy can be called out. Especially if the actions are often public within themselves.