We’ve all predicted it would happen eventually, and the NYT didn’t dissapoint:
WASHINGTON — Early in Senator John McCain’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers.
A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.
When news organizations reported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist’s client, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement.
Mr. McCain, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, both say they never had a romantic relationship. But to his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity.
It had been just a decade since an official favor for a friend with regulatory problems had nearly ended Mr. McCain’s political career by ensnaring him in the Keating Five scandal. In the years that followed, he reinvented himself as the scourge of special interests, a crusader for stricter ethics and campaign finance rules, a man of honor chastened by a brush with shame.
But the concerns about Mr. McCain’s relationship with Ms. Iseman underscored an enduring paradox of his post-Keating career. Even as he has vowed to hold himself to the highest ethical standards, his confidence in his own integrity has sometimes seemed to blind him to potentially embarrassing conflicts of interest.
I have no problems with his role in the Keating Five being discussed. It’s part of his political career, and one he will have to always answer for. But the insinuations that he had an affair with a lobbyist are the gutter type politics you’d expect to find on an opinion piece, partisan website, or blog, not a mainstream news outlet.
But then again, this is the NYT, so what am I supposed to expect? They’re so dedicated to helping the Dem nominee win in the general and bringing down McCain that they’ve already devoted a four-page exposé on the Mc, before he’s even officially gotten the nomination wrapped up. The Times story is such big news that MSNBC interrupted its regular programming to report it.
I wonder how long the NYT sat on this story?
Update/semi-related: Tom Maguire reminds us once again why he is one of the best bloggers in the conservasphere with his “attack piece” on Barack Obama. Consider it a must-read 
Thur AM Update 1 - 8:22 AM: The McCain campaign issues a lengthy rebuttal. And the Captain expresses a sentiment many of us are feeling this morning.
Just got word that there will be a press conference on this at 9 AM ET.
Update 2 - 9:49 AM: McCain responds:
TOLEDO, Ohio - Sen. John McCain, responding to published reports suggesting an inappropriate relationship with a female lobbyist, said Thursday that the allegations were “not true” and denied a romantic relationship with her.
“I’m very disappointed in this article. It’s not true,” the likely Republican presidential nominee said as his wife, Cindy, stood alongside him during a Toledo news conference called to address the matter.
McCain described the woman in question, lobbyist Vicki Iseman, as a friend.
Mary Katharine Ham: What’s the Quickest Way to Rally Conservatives ‘Round McCain? Sounds like it is.
Thur PM Update - 12:09 PM: Byron York spoke with John Weaver, who he describes as a “former top McCain campaign official who is now an informal adviser to the campaign” and who was also the source for some of the claims in the story. York’s interview is much more detailed and a lot less innuendo-based than what the NYT has reported. Surprise.
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This should dispel any notion that McCain might have harbored that he would still be a darling of the MSM in the November election.
“Are you now or have you ever been…a Republican?”
Comment by Mwalimu Daudi @ 2/20/2008 - 9:06 pm
The only story here is if there are “appearances of ethical impropriety”. That’s it. All the sexual nonsense is infuriating.
Comment by T-Steel @ 2/20/2008 - 9:11 pm
T-Steel - I tried to comment on your post yesterday about Michelle Obama’s comments, but had trouble with the comment screen never coming up after I registered. Has TMV had some comment posting issues lately?
Comment by Sister Toldjah @ 2/20/2008 - 9:12 pm
We’re using Disqus commenting system and they’ve been performing LIVE updates to their “stuff”. They broke alot of blogs’ commenting systems yesterday.
Comment by T-Steel @ 2/20/2008 - 9:14 pm
Ok - that must have been the problem I bumped into yesterday. Oh well …
Comment by Sister Toldjah @ 2/20/2008 - 9:20 pm
The NYT endorsed McCain because they wanted the GOP to nominate their worst candidate. One almost certain to split the party.
To the extent that John McCain stands for anything (except for John McCain) he stands for the wing of the GOP that believes the two parties should be the same.
i.e. Big government, Statism.
The Republican race was odd indeed. Thompson seemed indifferent, Huckabee was unexpectedly effective in personal appearances, and Guiliani chose a poor tactic by boringly talking of NYC about a zillion times.
IMO Romney was beaten because Thompson, Huckabee, and Guiliani diverted media attention. So McCain, the best known candidate, benefited.
Did I say the GOP race was odd? Hillary v. Obama is redefining the word.
Comment by K @ 2/20/2008 - 9:53 pm
The NYT ran over jumpin’ johnny with a bus, I wonder if it was the “straight talk express”?
Comment by Jay In Md. @ 2/20/2008 - 11:29 pm
Jay, it was non-named sources and sloppy journalism. Hope is not a plan.
Comment by Baklava @ 2/21/2008 - 12:30 am
I wonder if this story will do to the Times what the fake Air National Guard memos did to Dan Rather……..
Comment by Mwalimu Daudi @ 2/21/2008 - 1:06 am
They tried this nonsense years ago with George Herbert Walker Bush; that he stayed in a hotel with a female staffer. The trouble with this tabloid story was that their rooms were on different floors!
Comment by Tom TB @ 2/21/2008 - 8:38 am
On Bill Bennett’s show this morning he remarked that the McCain people had sent to the NYTimes a list of votes by the Senator that went directly against the lobbyist’s clients’ interests. Oddly, the NYTimes ignored that for the phony scandal. The NYTimes prefers to print lies, innuendos and propaganda that support the Left and attack the conservatives/Republicans. We’ll see more of this. McCain is just starting to feel the Leftist wrath.
Comment by benning @ 2/21/2008 - 9:42 am
Oh geez! The Times story was so bleeping boring I doubt if anybody got to the end of it. Howie Kurtz gives those who want a summary the “good parts version.”
Comment by Leslie @ 2/21/2008 - 10:17 am
From Bill Keller:
If this is the pace the Times uses to release a story, I sure hope they get around to letting us know that Christ rose from the dead soon.
Comment by Rovin @ 2/21/2008 - 3:03 pm