McCain seeks to exploit controversy for cash

February 21, 2008

Just this morning, John McCain was accused of another adulterous affair, this time with a lobbyist for whom he may have done special legislative favors. Naturally, the McCain campaign responded this afternoon with the next logical step in crisis management: exploiting the controversy for a quick buck.

John McCain’s presidential campaign wasted no time taking advantage of an article in the New York Times which portrayed a relationship with a female lobbyist that troubled his advisers nearly a decade ago.

The article “is particularly disgusting – an un-sourced hit-and-run smear campaign designed to distract from the issues at stake in this election,” McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, wrote in an e-mail to supporters Thursday afternoon.

“We need your help to counteract the liberal establishment and fight back against the New York Times by making an immediate contribution today,” the e-mail also said in text that links to an online contribution form on the McCain campaign’s website.

The very silly fundraising letter, which should insult the intelligence of even the most sycophantic Republican donor, went on to argue “the liberal establishment and their [sic] allies at the New York Times” went on the “attack” because McCain is just now “locking up” the GOP nomination. (Wouldn’t it be great if the “liberal establishment” really could just order up critical exposes in the NYT?) That the NYT investigation began three months ago would only detract from the sales pitch.

The same letter went on to argue, “With John McCain leading a number of general-election polls against Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the New York Times knew the time to attack was now, and they did.” Besides sounding paranoid, can the McCain campaign really identify “a number of general-election polls” in which McCain leads Obama? Because I’ve looked, and they don’t to appear to exist outside the Republican campaign’s fervent imagination.

Of course, the Republican National Committee — official motto: Anything you can do, we can do dumber — sent its own letter out today, arguing:

“The New York Times has proven once again that the liberal mainstream media will do whatever it takes to put Senator Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama in the White House.”

This would be the “liberal mainstream media” that’s treated McCain like a folk hero for eight years? The one often described as “McCain’s base”? The one that heaps praise on McCain for pandering, flip-flopping, and abandoning his principles? That’s the “liberal mainstream media” intent on destroying John McCain? Just checking.

And would now be an inconvenient time to note the New York Times’ glowing endorsement of McCain less than a month ago, before the New York GOP primary? I’m sure it’s part of some sinister conspiracy that’s only evident to conservatives.

Same thing Edwards did. Smart move. Of course Edwards actually had substance behind his requests.

  • “the liberal establishment and their [sic] allies at the New York Times”

    ??? That’s the right spelling of the possessive. Who the hell up a ‘[sic]’ there?

    As for being surprised that McCain is exploiting this (actually, his campaign). You are surprised why??? I saw this coming from the first minute.

  • Now all I have to do is figure out how to email these cretins a wooden nickel with dry-rot and a termite infestation!

  • I hope I’m wrong, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this letter worked. Among so-called conservatives, the enemy (McCain) of my enemy (NYTimes) is my friend.

  • Lance – that caught my eye too. I think it may be because “establishment” is singular, so the preferred wording would be “establishment and its allies” ?

    It may a debatable point of grammar – but it would take more of a prescriptivist than I am to get farther into such a debate.

  • The NYT’s motto is you always hurt the one you love. They’ve been backstabbing liberals for years, now since McCain is their endorsee they shove a shiv into him. Which he well-deserves.

  • Lance said:
    As for being surprised that McCain is exploiting this (actually, his campaign). You are surprised why??? I saw this coming from the first minute.

    It’s rhetorical surprise. CB isn’t just shooting the bull. He’s directing this choir.

  • Would this be the same NYT that has William Kristol as a member of its “esteemed” staff?

    Liberal media, indeed.

  • I do think that the NYT owes an explanation of why they endorsed McCain, knowing what they did. It would certainly be an easy exercise to show how Romney, Giuliani, Huckabee, et. al. were even worse, but the Times wasn’t actually required to endorse anyone. My guess is that while the right likes to accuse the Times and the Washington Post of being liberal, they are actually more than a little bit schitzophrenic. But you still have to wonder if the editors ever communicate with their reporters.

  • MsJoanne, @11,

    It would. And I’d recommend going to Think Progress to see how the unesteemed Kristol is tying himself into pretzels, trying to defend *both*: his hero and his employer… It’s a joy to behold.

  • McCain v MSM = Hillary v majority of Dem voters. The lesson? Don’t take your base for granted. It could turn on you at any moment.

  • libra, #13, I saw it. I find it amusing how the right wingers are screaming it’s all about them and watching Kristol walk that tightrope (which I hope he gets so tangled up in we never have to see or hear from him again), would be amusing if it wasn’t that our country is in such need of fixing.

    I read TP as religiously as I do CB. I love HuffPo’s Business page. They’re a little too biased for me politically. One of the reasons I love CB so much as Steve B. has a true nack for doing reporting without spin. His bias rarely shows through. HuffPo, not so much. TPM Muckraker is another of my faves. They do some incredible work there. There are so few investigative journalists these days…but thank god for the ones we have.

  • “Steve B. has a true nack for doing reporting without spin. His bias rarely shows through.”

    Other than the fact he runs a liberal blog…

  • The real question is why did the not-so-venerable NYT withhold publication of this story until after Super-Duper Tuesday even though it had whatever goods it had way before? Just like it didn’t print the revelation of illegal wiretapping and surveilance Bush was carrying out before the 2004 election. The NYT sucks big time, and this is just another example.

  • Endorse, then smear? It would seem that the corporate media can’t quite make up its mind on who they want to bless in the November 2008 elections… Do they want to go with the people’s choice, Obama, or do they want to try to keep things corporate after eight years of the Bush fiasco? Yesterday, I happened to tune into the Glenn Beck show on CNN headlines and he was already proclaiming that Obama would be our next President. Apparently, he was shocked by Obama’s big win in Wisconsin and even more by the early voting numbers in Dallas, Texas. Apparently the Texas voters are voting Democratic three or four times as much as they are voting Republican. And early Texas voters are ten times as strong in 2008 as they were in 2004. In Wisconsin, Democratic voters outnumbered Republican voters by over two and a half to one. Both of these states would tend to indicate a Democratic and Obama landslide in November. What irritates me, is that SF Bay Area newspapers are very loathe to report the voting totals by party in primary elections. I guess that this is just one more Republican corporate trick to keep the people ignorant on the true level of anger and outrage against the moronic Bush regime..

  • 16.
    On February 21st, 2008 at 7:33 pm, JRS Jr said:

    “Steve B. has a true (k)nack for doing reporting without spin. His bias rarely shows through.”

    Other than the fact he runs a liberal blog…

    Apparently, truth is a liberal thing. Try it sometime.

  • How does fighting back against the liberal media cost extra money from the coffers? — Shalimar, @8

    You have any idea how much a full page ad — saying “I didn’t have sex with that woman” — in NYT is likely to cost??? Though, perhaps, seeing as he’s their golden, endorsed, boy, maybe they’ll give him a discount 🙂

    Anyway, cashing in (or trying to) on the “I been done wrong” principle is SOP among all contenders and their surrogates; it’s not unique to Grandpa McTerrible . I get “Hillary been done wrong, donate immediately” messages from Emily’s List at least once a week. And “Congressman/Senator X (R) says Y; let’s teach him a lesson. Donate” from the Congressional and Senatorial Committees.

    What I don’t understand is why the right wing is so upset about the story, since it directly contradicts the Grandpa theme. Here’s the virile hero, of many a bedroom battle, not only diddling someone 30yrs his junior, but actually getting paid for it (and for writing a letter or two). Is that a dream job, or what? Any man would be proud of getting half as much…

  • Steve –

    Is this the same letter that Kagro X quotes over at The Great Orange Satan that has this little gem in it:

    Objective observers are viewing this article exactly as they should – as a sleazy smear attack from a liberal newspaper against the conservative Republican frontrunner. Sean Hannity said, after reading the article three times, “It was so full of innuendo and so lacking of fact, and so involved in smear, I came to the conclusion that the goal here was to bring up a 20-year-old scandal.” Washington attorney Bob Bennett, who was the Democrat counsel during the Keating investigation, said, “This is a real hit job.”

    (Emphasis added)

    “Objective observers” such as McCain’s own attorney Bob Bennett think this whole thing is a “hit job”. That, my friends, is some Straight Talk. Some smelly, thick Straight Talk. Spread that on your garden and watch your vegetables grow.

    (And I have to echo Kagro X – WTF is up with reminding people about the Keating Five thing? If I were going to cite Bob Bennett in a letter like this and pretend he’s somehow “objective” in this matter, I’d point out that he was Clinton’s counsel in the Le Affair Lewinsky. It would also show that he knows what a “hit job” looks like.)

  • This all seems to be playing out as well as the “Betray Us” ad did, which makes me wonder if MoveOn plated the story in its infinite wisdom.

  • “can the McCain campaign really identify “a number of general-election polls” in which McCain leads Obama? Because I’ve looked, and they don’t to appear to exist outside the Republican campaign’s fervent imagination.”

    Perhaps your illness is affecting your ability to write factually.. Let me help you find a few polls, CB. There are actually a several polls listed on RealClearPolitics.com over the last few months that shows McCain in the lead (although more favor Obama).

  • That [sic] is ridiculous. The bald assertion that “establishment” is singular and that, therefore, the possessive should be the singular “its” instead of the plural “their,” is just silly. “Establishment” is a singular collective noun. The [sic] only makes sense based on a concern for countability; “establishment” is countably singular, which is to say it is “one establishment” and not “two or more establishments.” But where collective nouns are concerned, countability is not the only–nor even the most important–basis on which to determine the appropriate number to use for agreement with other parts of speech. In the context of the letter, the reference to “the liberal establishment” can clearly be taken to refer to a collection of liberal individuals acting in concert, but all with individual motivations and projects. In this case, then, the emphasis is not on the mere countability of “establishment,” but on the plurality of the members of the aforementioned liberal establishment. The use of the plural possessive “their” makes sense in this context. You can see a parallel attitude, albeit somewhat more subtly, in the construction of “their allies at the New York Times.” As an example of metonymy, it would be perfectly appropriate to refer to the New York Times in the singular–something along the lines of, “and their ally, the New York Times.” Or, if you prefer, “and its ally, the New York Times.” However, the New York Times is being viewed as a collective entity with individually relevant constituent members; hence, “their allies at the New York Times.” Juxtaposed with this, it only makes good stylistic sense to refer to “the liberal establishment and their allies,” etc., since both “establishment” and “New York Times” are being used as umbrella terms for collections of individuals. Such a usage may be more strongly preferred in British English than in American English, in which a greater emphasis on countability alone as the determiner of numeric agreement is admittedly fairly typical, but it is in no wise simply incorrect, and in fact suggests a more sophisticated command of the language on the part of its author than does the insertion of [sic] above on the part of its own.

  • South Carolina 2000 changed everything for Mc Cain. He retained competent counsel for just this reason. Perhaps a few major lawsuits on editors or people who “wish to remain unnamed” with unverifiable information, (on both sides of the aisle) would help clear this up.

    Actually though, I think people have had the craps with this whole ‘what happened ten years ago deal’, people want to know what you plan on doing from here out. If people don’t understand that , then they don’t understand Obama’s success to date.

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