Hi kids, Scanner Bryan here. I wanted to break out of the collective "we" for a sec because -- speaking entirely for myself -- I'm of the opinion that the McCain story run by the New York Times is pretty much, as the Senator says, "a hit-and-run smear."
If you haven't bothered to read the piece through, I suggest you do. I'll still be here when you're finished. Done? Great. So. Remember that part where they actually say "McCain had an affair"? No? Why would that be? Oh, maybe because it's never actually stated. What do the four authors of the Times piece is actually fit to print? Well, let's see...
Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened...
[T]o his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist [...] threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity.
[S]ome of the senator’s advisers had grown so concerned that the relationship had become romantic that they took steps to intervene.
It's like reporting the story of a fire from the perspective of unnamed bystanders who were sure they smelled smoke. If it turns out to be false, well, no one broke any rules. And if it turns out to be true, and McCain goes "Mea culpa!," well then huzzah, they shoplifted their way into a big story. (There are also some hints at McCain knowing he acted "inappropriately," but that could mean any number of things -- financial impropriety, ethical lapses, fucking in a corporate jet...)
Now, let's be clear: a story about John McCain's ethical history, which is basically what this piece is, is a perfectly legitimate story to investigate and report. The first time anybody heard the name John McCain (Hanoi Hilton not withstanding), it was because he was wrapped up in the Savings and Loan scandals of the 1980's. How a guy goes from that to the embattled poster boy for campaign reform is a worthy and most likely compelling story.
But does that story require personal innuendo? Would it have been possible to report on McCain's over-close relationship to a lobbyist without dropping all these hints? Categorically, the answer is "Yes." And how do we know? Because Howard Kurtz did it last December. Is it a terribly compelling or juicy read? No. But does it have the same broad strokes as the Times piece? Absolutely.
Now, the Times exposé has apparently been in the works for some time, and Times staff apparently deemed it so worthy of interest that a number of reporters have been involved with it. But I've got a hard time believing that Times Executive Editor Bill Keller or anyone at the paper thought that this story was really ready for prime-time yet. What seems increasingly likely -- and here I respectfully part ways with my fellow blogger Brian Fairbanks -- is that after spending months on the story, the decision was made to publish something -- anything -- before The New Republic published their own exposé on the Times, detailing the infighting by staffers over the apparently-never-proven infidelity angle. In effect, the Times was in danger of being scooped on their own scoop, and so the choices were:
-- kill the story and write off the effort
-- publish the story without innuendo and look like a chump for not including the infidelity stuff when the New Republic article comes out
-- publish the story with everything they could get away with and let the chips fall where they may
Even assuming that they had juicier details that they declined to publish, they still basically went with option C -- which to my mind is the only choice guaranteed to make them look like assholes. It's a Hail Mary pass, relying on a suddenly repentant John McCain to be there to catch the ball.
Now, this is a sex blog, and maybe you're wondering "Why the fuck should I care about this?" Well, for one thing, in a world where right-wingers get busted every month for sexual hypocrisy, why waste our time with innuendo like this? For another: if the standard of proof on infidelity has really been brought so low, then get ready for a shit-ton of accusations about any number of political figures, left and right, starting with Bill Clinton, whose sex life I'm guessing we're all pretty sick of hearing about right now. Finally, though, I just get annoyed whenever anyone is forced to deny something of a sexual nature that no one actually committed to saying. And you should too.
And can I say one other thing? If the Times had just gone with the story of two political advisers working to quell an election-year scandal they weren't actually positive existed, that would have been an awesome story. They could have named the advisers, or not; they could have named the candidate, or not; they could have named the lobbyist, or not. The machinations and speculations of that story would have been worthy enough for print either way. Sadly, that's not the story the Times went with either. Maybe it's the one that'll appear in The New Republic.
(OK, and full disclosure, since some of you must be wondering: I've been donating to both the Clinton and Obama campaigns since the summer -- twice as much to Obama as Clinton.)
UPDATE: The New Republic's piece is up now. Keller comes off as the one demanding revisions and rewrites from his somewhat indignant reporters, one of whom is implied to have quit over the story's many delays -- but in an NPR interview, Keller also just tried to reframe the story as one of McCain's history of impropriety... which leads me to believe he knows they shoplifted the infidelity angle. Man, I so hate to be parroting what seems to be the GOP line on this one -- but I'll be damned if it's not the one that makes the most sense to me for now.