On cue, the New York Times makes my point for me about budding adversarial press for McCain, unleashing their long-pending story questioning his ethics.
McCain's camp is fighting back vigorously, though the story will inevitably both leave a mark now via further media coverage and provide fodder for Democrats later in the year. Note that regardless of the merits of the allegations in question, the story provides more than enough details and implications for a line of attack from 527's or surrogates in the press.
And of course, all this is coming after John McCain has all but sown up the Republican nomination. Perhaps not so coincidentally, McCain had already started to draw blood against Obama (here and here for examples). Think this might knock him off message for a while?
The timing is simply too cute not to look suspicious. Ironically, conservatives are used to such not-so-subtly timed hit jobs (heard of a little story CBS did on Bush and the National Guard?). This may actually end up making McCain look a little more sympathetic to some restive conservatives now that the Grey Lady is more foe than friend to him.
Either way, it's a familiar stunt, loathsome as it is.
Bastards.
Posted by Eric Earling at February 20, 2008 07:30 PM | Email ThisAfer maligning your Republican base for the past decade, the question you'll have to ask yourself is "Will my buddies Ted Kennedy and Russ Feingold come to my defense"?
Posted by: Rick D. on February 20, 2008 09:10 PMWill it impact as much as the brewing gay sex/drugs scandal presumably soon to be dogging Berry Hussein?
http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=56626
Nah... the leftist morons and the kos crew are too busy licking their own chops over this non-issue.
Posted by: Hinton on February 20, 2008 09:40 PMDammed if you do, dammed if you don't. Gotta love American politics.
While McCain had other Republicans in his crosshairs, the MSM loved him because he was a useful idiot. Now that he's training his sights on The Messiah Known As Obama, he is a useful idiot who is no longer useful.
1988 Bush/Dukakis
1992 Bush/Clinton
1996 Clinton/Dole
2000 Bush/Gore
2004 Bush/Kerry
You hit it right on the head. McCain has kissed up to the MSN for years, not thinking they would come back to get him. Well -O-well John, just look what is happening now! LOL
Posted by: Army Medic/Vet on February 21, 2008 06:24 AMI have a democrat friend who wants a liquor license here in this state. He has been kissing butt with about six state senators and he told me last night he is just days from "getting his license". But if their democrat names were announced it wouldn't make a hill of beans to any democrat voter in the state.
I didn't start out a McCain supporter but things like this tend to cause me to say "Is this the worse he has done? Hillary has been proven to do 10 times this and it looks like Obama is being found not so "clean" himself.
But who cares on the left? They are too proud of their dirt. The right will shoot its self by being too right to vote and the NYT will say "I told you so".
Plug your ears children, it is going to get worse.
Posted by: Ken Howard on February 21, 2008 07:29 AMHave you seen the rallies the two candidates have? Obama has a good mix of young and old, white and black, while McCain is all old and fogey and white.
Posted by: swatter on February 21, 2008 08:03 AMAnd yep, she included MY top three... of course I DID email her... :)
She starts with good choices (all of mine land there), moves on to better choices, then "thrilling, effective, utterly wonderful choices", then "four superb choices [that] all fail the need to add something to the ticket"... then has the hubris to make us WAIT for the "Final Five".
Good reading despite the 'stay tuned' cliff-hanger.
I'm fairly certain you will all have an opinion.
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on February 21, 2008 08:57 AMWell, HE replied to my email...
I have to say though, it was more a writing style than the name that led me to believe he was a she.
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on February 21, 2008 10:04 AMCan't wait to see Dotty's version of the slime.
Posted by: John425 on February 21, 2008 11:09 AMJust a guess, based on Rudy's super-enthusiastic support for McCain.
I'm guessing McCain will want someone from a battleground or left-leaning state.
The VP candidate will have to be in a role where giving up their position doesn't incite a free-for-all or Democrat win for the spot once vacated. They have to have a good recognizable name. They have to be someone who can reach out to the Oral Roberts University types and will make them feel they have a good chance to win once McCain's 4 -> 8 year term comes to an end.
Rudy doesn't fit that bill (too many skeletons in the closet?) as well as some others I've heard tossed around but if he picks Rudy they can run as the American Hero ticket.
McCain - Stanford seems like a good mix. WVH also had some good suggestions back a few topics back.
http://antipolygraph.org/
They are about as reliable as a box of kleenex with wires sticking out of it. So why now? Why not after the Keynote Speech? Or when he declared to run? Why now? Because he is unbeatable without this crap. And the proof he has? And why would that scumbag have had a limo?
Posted by: CandrewB on February 21, 2008 05:46 PMSheesh...you don't see stuff like this in Seattle:
http://www.alcalde-fay.com/meet_the_firm/BiosDetail.cfm?id=84
Posted by: John Bailo on February 21, 2008 06:35 PMClinton and JFK made this sort of thing a common practice in presidential politics.
Where's Marilyn when you need her?
Posted by: GS on February 21, 2008 10:53 PM
Yep. Sounds exactly like something the modern GOP would do to someone who displeased that Party's leadership. From the original New York Times story:
'Separately, a top McCain aide met with Ms. Iseman at Union Station in Washington to ask her to stay away from the senator. John Weaver, a former top strategist and now an informal campaign adviser, said in an e-mail message that he arranged the meeting after "a discussion among the campaign leadership" about her.'
"Bastards."
Who are the other Republicans to whom your (wonderfully-civil) description applies, Eric?
"When did the NYT become a tabloid?"
Whitewater.
Posted by: tensor on February 22, 2008 01:16 AMThe 80 research projects listed, published since 1980, involved 6,380 polygraph examinations or sets of charts from examinations. Researchers conducted 12 studies of the validity of field examinations, following 2,174 field examinations, providing an average accuracy of 98%.
I don't like those odds.
Look, I don't know if that guy is telling the truth, and in fact, it's probably more likely that he isn't. But if the NY Times is denigrating this campaign season into tabloid journalism, it's only fair that they investigate, no?
Posted by: Palouse on February 22, 2008 07:59 AM
Poor delusional Duffer, the dream dies hard... or perhaps reality is just a foreign concept...
Texas poll shows dead heat among Dems
A new CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll suggests the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination between Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois is a statistical dead heat in Texas, which holds primaries March 4.
In the survey, out Monday, 50 percent of likely Democratic primary voters support Clinton as their choice for the party's nominee, with 48 percent backing Obama.
But taking into account the poll's sampling error of plus or minus 4½ percentage points for Democratic respondents, the race is a virtual tie.
AP survey: Superdelegates jump to Obama
WASHINGTON - The Democratic superdelegates are starting to follow the voters -- straight to Barack Obama.
In just the past two weeks, more than two dozen of them have climbed aboard his presidential campaign, according to a survey by The Associated Press. At the same time, Hillary Rodham Clinton's are beginning to jump ship, abandoning her for Obama or deciding they now are undecided....
She has 2 choices... give up with grace... (not her best event)... or destroy the party with her predictably slimy machinations... either way, I can't wait!
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on February 22, 2008 01:49 PMThis passage is from a book written by James Allan Matté of Matte Polygraph
www.mattepolygraph.com
Now there is an unbiased opinion. Further, I will say a four year old can beat a polygraph administered by the FBI if you teach him what to do. We are the only modern nation whose populace still thinks a polygraph has a shred of merit.
Posted by: CandrewB on February 22, 2008 05:46 PMI seriously doubt that.
And despite your anecdotal evidence that polygraphs can be "beat", it's very unlikely this guy would be someone who could do it.
And if the polygraph does show that he's telling the truth, it only means that this is something worth investigating. After all, the NYT investigated a non-story with no proof about McCain, right?
Posted by: Palouse on February 23, 2008 07:37 AM