Comments on: You Call This A Scandal?

By: Jay Reding

Jay Reding — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 00:13:43 +0000

McCain almost certainly ends up benefitting from the story, but I rather doubt that they wanted the story to run nevertheless... they certainly didn't in December.

Even if John McCain (or any other generic candidate who happens to have an (R) next to his/her name) was on videotape sleeping with this lobbyist and agreeing to vote the way she wants him too, the headline at JayReding.com today would still be “You Call This a Scandal?”

Tell that to Trent Lott or Harriet Miers or Larry Craig...

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 23:15:59 +0000

adb, what exactly did I say that was “way off”? I don’t disagree that the NY Times editorial was a shotty piece of journalism better left unprinted, but given that McCain has clearly won two news cycles worth of goodwill in the article’s fallout, it’s pretty clear that the answer to Jay’s question of “Who benefits from this?” is “John McCain”.

By: adb67

adb67 — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 18:44:12 +0000

Your way off on this Mark. This is typical crap journalism by the NY Times. Once a great paper it is now nothing more than a liberal fishwrapper…..no integrity, no honesty…nothing……

By: missy

missy — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 04:29:35 +0000

oh please like a republican got any pull with the dumbass ny times the fact is ny times is in deep trouble losing people right and left to the ny post ny times were desperate they didnt have any facts to support their lies and i for one as a merican and new yorker sick of that rag of a paper doing shit like this time to take the ny out oftheir name should rename it bin laden times

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 23:49:21 +0000

“You Call This A Scandal?”

Even if John McCain (or any other generic candidate who happens to have an (R) next to his/her name) was on videotape sleeping with this lobbyist and agreeing to vote the way she wants him too, the headline at JayReding.com today would still be “You Call This a Scandal?”

“The question to be asked here is cui bono—who benefits from this story coming out now?”

John McCain, this is who. For the last 24 hours, the New York Times story has managed to unite right-wing talk show hosts around a common enemy, and if there’s nothing more to the story than what we’ve seen so far, John McCain can expect a backlash to his benefit. The McCain campaign is having a field day feigning exasperation at NYT yellow journalism and can credibly paint their candidate as the victim of a smear by his “political enemies” (i.e. the same guys who endorsed him a few weeks ago). At the end of the day, I’m betting a high-up in the McCain campaign pushed the NYT to run this story to set up the GOP’s boilerplate victimhood narrative at the hands of the “liberal media”, helping to remind conservatives who the “real enemies” are.