John McCain and the New York Times

My reaction to the alleged McCain story making the rounds is twofold. To summarize, John McCain, while running for president 8 years ago, developed a romantic relationship with a female lobbyist, bringing all sorts of political conflicts of interest into play. And some of his aides had to intervene to "save him from himself."

Like I said, there are two parts to this scandal from the way I see it. There's the romantic aspect, with McCain supposedly having an adulterous affair with a woman 30 years younger. I largely couldn't care less about this part, and don't think it is relevant in any way. I don't think the sexual peccadiloes of elected politicians affects their capacity to serve. In cases where hypocrisy comes into play, like a Sen. Larry Craig, or Newt Gingrich carrying a witchhunt against Clinton when he was also fooling around, I'd say it matters, but in this case, I'm gonna take a pass. There's a lot I don't agree with McCain on, and there's plenty of other reasons why I think he's unfit to be president, but this isn't one of them.

More importantly, however, if he was providing political favors for a lobbyist while carrying on a romantic relationship with her, there are a lot of questions raised, and I'd say raising this as a political point is fair game. John McCain has distinguished himself on the basis of ethics and integrity, and I don't think there are many other politicians in either party who have done more to promote political transparency than John McCain. If it does turn out that he is guilty on this count (something that is yet to be proven, so I'm considering him innocent until something more substantial comes out.

The biggest story in this at this point, as far as I am concerned, is the fact that the New York Times had this story right at the end of last year, and were going to come forward right before the New Hampshire primary, but decided to sit on it. Infact, they only published the story today because a rival news organization (The New Republic) were about to come forward with the news. Needless to say, if this had come out a month and a half ago, McCain would have lost in NH heavily, with no way to recover. If I was a Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee supporter, I would be really pissed at the New York Times, and rightly so.

A lot of conservative pundits have been frothing at the mouth, calling it an attempt by the "liberal media" to discredit the Republican nominee. Infact, this couldn't be further from reality. By refusing to come forward with the scandal early enough to influence the outcome of the Republican primaries, but 9 months before the general election when it should already have become old news, I don't see this as being anything other than a favor for the Republican party.