I'm going to bat here for McCain : WTF is wrong with the New York Times?
2008 started "off" to say the least, for The New York Times. First it was the hiring of Bill Krystol as an Op/Ed columnist. Then it was their craptacular endorsement of both Hillary Clinton and John McCain.
Yet, if we're going to cast aspersions, let's not forget the embarrassment and disgrace Judith Miller's aiding and abetting of the Bush Administration brought to the paper's credibility not so long ago.
So it's just amazing that they'll come out with a hit job against John McCain. In an allegedly "investigative" report of John McCain's ethics, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk is a thinly vield gossip piece about whether he was lobbied hard, really really hard, by a woman called Vicki Iseman.
I am of two minds about this. Let me start with the deep and ponderous one first :
Look, anybody who has been married ought to never take anybody else's private life as a barometer of their professional shortcomings. Especially when you have someone like Hillary Clinton in the running.
Marriages are the things myths are made of. They have complete, secret and public lives separate from the people who are actually involved in the marriage.
Believe me, I can attest to the fact that my marriage, in the lips and minds of many of my neighbors and friends, has a whole life and identity of its own; separate from the day to day reality of life with the father of my children. Which is why I am sensitive of hit jobs like the one lobbed against McCain.
Look, people stay married for a lot of reasons. Look at the Clintons. What is disheartening about this article is that it perpetuates a pattern of attacks against the McCains. If it wasn't the misogynist attacks against Cindi for taking pain killers for whatever ailed her, their detractors threw every racist epithet for them having adopted a dark-skinned Bangladeshi girl.
Yet that was their political adversaries. For a newspaper of record to join in the lynch party, it's just really crossing a line.
And on that note, let me go now really shallow for my second thought of the day :
I am sorry but, as far as the two contestants go, Cindi wins hands down. Look at the woman! *I* would hit that. Cindi McCain is smart, funny, sexy and a billionairess ... Hello! Just sign me up for the MILF bandwagon.
So people, back off the private lives of the McCains and all other candidates.
In a country where the majority of divorces happen among people who call themselves Christian Fundamentalists, and usually after they've found Jesus, let's just remind y'all about that one story about the woman, the carpenter from Nazareth and the throwing of stones.
Seriously :
Back.
The.
F&^%.
Off.
You are right about the "family values" part
My friend Michael Rogers' blog exists precisely for that reason : To expose closet gay republicans who try to use Congress for the extreme right's homophobic agenda.
So yeah, I agree with that. But, dude, that NYT piece should have gone on a blog like Perez Hilton, not on their front page.
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Agreed, this was a hit job
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.