Sen. McCain for being in bed - perhaps literally - with telecom lobbyists for, like, forever.
The rank hypocrisy of painting yourself as Mr. Integrity when you have been an owned subsidiary of big business your entire career? {Which is supposed to be the real reason why the rest of the GOP hates him.}
The New York Times for knowing all about this, but holding onto the story for months… only to publish it when they learned that a rival publication (The New Republic) was about to publish a story about the fights within the New York Times press room about publishing the scandal. In the process of talking about the fighting, the TNR would scoop the Times. Thus, it’s not news fit to print unless somebody is going to beat you to it, then it is.
The rest of the press for being so enamored of old McCain they’ve just “discovered” all this crap even though its there for anyone to see.
Me, I just love calling it the Strayed Cock Express (courtesy of Firedoglake.com)
Endorsing him for the Republican nomination, if you please. At this stage in the proceedings, one would think that goes without saying, but for some reason, it’s an important distinction to worthies such as Shodan.
ETA: and as far as I have been able to discern, this is quite possibly a non-story. I’ll await further developments, such as they are.
Well, what of it? They were perfectly willing to accept that this is something that maybe shouldn’t be published as long as no one was making a buck off it, but can’t afford to be scooped. So they held on as long as they could, then didn’t get screwed. A little brinksmanshippy, but no worse than anyone expects. Heck, I’m pleased that they waited until after the Republican nomination was mostly wrapped up but before the real race starts.
First off, the claim is that the NYT knew something newsworthy about the candidate that contradicts one of his major selling points. And then sat on it.
Which, I’ll admit, seems only a little shady, until we get to point two - the NYT also gave its endorsement to this same candidate that they were protecting, for the Republican party nomination. At which point, the NYT is deliberately obscuring information about the candidate, while making it clear that (for whatever Macchiavellian reason) they support his candidacy. Which goes beyond a little shady, IMNSHO, into deliberately trying to rig the election.
Your final sentence really fucking pisses me off - so you want the Republicans saddled with someone unelectable, and any distortion of the facts is suitable to achieve that goal? Fuck you! And fuck the NYT.
And this is in a State where Independents cannot vote in primaries without joining a politcal party, in part, to prevent party faithful from one party from spoiling the primary process of the other party. But if it’s going to benefit your party it’s all good?
I’m so goddamned glad to see that you and the NYT feel so strongly about the idea of an informed electorate being able to make the best choices.
Is there anything you won’t stoop to to get your candidate or party into power, I wonder.
I’m less impressed by who he’s banging than I am about how much he’s learned since being the middle finger of the ‘Keaton 5’. Bribery and writing letters to peddle influence yet again, McCain? America is voting better thieves than you out of office…!
I didn’t read everything beyond the OP as carefully as I thought I had. But there doesn’t seem to be any hard evidence to support the idea that she’s influencing his decision-making or giving him illegal money, unless I’m missing something (and it’s possible that I am, though I’m reading the NYT article right now.) She spends a lot of time around his office- she’s a lobbyist! That’s what they do! Lobbyists are a sketchy, shady part of our political process. And just like Bill Clinton, JFK, and FDR, I don’t give a damn who he’s sleeping with as long as there aren’t laws being broken or influence being peddled. Besides, there’s no evidence that he is sleeping with her besides that she hangs around a lot.
However, I’ll apologize for suggesting that the NYT was right to sit on the story while endorsing him- the OP has no link and doesn’t mention that the NYT had endorsed McCain, and I didn’t read the whole thread carefully. That’s shady at best and conspiratorial at worst on the NYT’s part, I’ll concede.
In my last sentence, I was thinking of the NYT as a fairly liberal publication that was supporting Clinton or Obama if anyone. (I had no idea that newspapers endorsed candidates, and I don’t think they should- it promotes bias. I suppose at least this way you can see who’ll they’ll be biased towards.) My thinking was that it’s probably good not to drop bombshells on candidates that you don’t support on, say, Super Tuesday, when a candidate has no chance for a rebuttal before an important election. November surprises like that can really sink a candidate for something they may not actually be guilty of. Granted, that has to be balanced with “the public’s right to know,” so it’s an ethical gray area. My last sentence was meant to convey that this might be the best time to publish it- when McCain has a long time to rebut these accusations before he’s up against another big election. Look, there’s no perfect time to publish this- there’s not much hard evidence. If they’ve had this for six months, then I’ll grant they’re quite late in releasing it.
I don’t understand your comment about “so you want the Republicans saddled with someone unelectable”- if I wanted an unelectable Republican, I’d have been raving for this material to have been released three weeks ago- this material hurts McCain, who I think is the most electable Republican running. Ron Paul is too much a fringe player, Guiliani is too liberal, Mitt Romney is too slimy and flip-floppy (and a Mormon, which I don’t care about but the religious right does), and Huckabee isn’t appealing to many outside the religious right.
Again, my apologies for not reading carefully before posting.
You mean like the Dems? Seriously, I have almost no faith in the vast majority of the American people, and I’m afraid that a near-majority of them would vote for a goat before they would vote for a woman or a black man.
Part of my problem is that I recall when the Boston Globe, while I was living in Massachusetts, lost a libel suit (which was then overturned on appeal) for manufacturing a story to make sure that Dukakis got the Dem nomination for governor. I feel, very strongly, that while the press has been granted some extraordinary liberties, it also should have responsibilities to match. And this behavior by the NYT, while not the mostly fabricated story that the Globe got in trouble for, does remind me of it.
EJsGirl, I admit that there is room to wonder whether a black man, or a woman could get the majority of the vote in a nationwide election. I hope you’re wrong, for a number of reasons, but it’s possible.
I think it’s very possible, however, for that black man, or woman, to get a majority of the delegates in the Electoral College voting for them. I am hoping for a Democratic President starting just under a year from now. (I’d prefer Obama, but part of that is that I don’t like Hillary for reasons that are not entirely rational.)
