Office of the Independent Blogger

Here The Swamp and Bill Bennett agree that the McCain story is going to help him. I can imagine it rallying certain conservatives around him, but I don’t see it doing much good or ill, either way. Conservatives will vote for him no matter what and this story doesn’t have enough teeth to it to hurt the Senator from Arizona. Now that McCain is calling the story untrue, and others are hinting that there have been numerous instances where he voted against Ms. Iseman’s interests, this will become a non-issue, especially as time begins to pass and the campaign heats up. These sorts of scandals don’t live forever, and it’s especially true when they come out mid-week instead of on a Monday. That’s a political trick you likely didn’t know, Dear Reader: you put good news out there on Sunday nights, Monday mornings and bad news late in the week.

It limits the news cycle or enhances it, depending.

Edit: Double X Factor weighs in and I just read it.

I read the Vicki Iseman-the-cute-lobbyist/John McCain-isn’t-ethical piece, too, after no fewer than three people told me to—none particularly enthusiastic about McCain. All were apalled, not by the content of the story, but by the transparent thinness of the reporting. If the Times has evidence that McCain had an affair, they should come out with it. If they have evidence that he showed improper favoritism toward a lobbyist, they should come out with that, too. The fact that they do neither—most of the article rehashes old stories—must mean they don’t have anything at all; perhaps they are hoping the blogosphere will produce it. The only “evidence” comes from two anonymous aides who claim they told Iseman to buzz off and stop distracting their boss—behavior which strikes me as quite normal and rather admirable. Sounds like they were doing their job.

Thanks to lack of evidence, the article reads not like an exposé but like an elaborate and extended piece of insinuation. Surely this must will damage the New York Times more than John McCain: Who will believe their reporting on him now?

More thoughts on a different matter: Is the Clinton campaign finished? They’re definitely struggling mightily, and I’m starting to hear Ricky Nelson down in Texas: “sang a song about a honky tonk / it was time to leave.” This article notes that Clinton’s ground game has fallen into chaos and this piece illustrates the great contrast in support and momentum between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Perhaps the Clinton’s can pull it off, but at this point I think it would be a crime against democracy and an unlikely one, at that. This nomination looks like Obama’s, to hold and savor, unless the Democratic Party wants to implode itself.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 21st, 2008 at 9:59 am and is filed under Outside Retort (Current Affairs).