TIME: February 21, 2008
Cliffs Notes for the NY Times' McCain Story
Posted by Michael Scherer
Every now and then, the New York Times writes a story that requires Cliffs Notes....Here is my Cliff Notes guide to reading the story:
1. John McCain may, or may not, have had a "romantic" entanglement with a much-younger lobbyist about eight years ago. The Times reporters don't know, or refuse to say they know, but they are quite happy to speculate. We learn that anonymous "top advisors" became "convinced the relationship had become romantic." The evidence for this is that the two seemed to hang out together. She came to his fundraisers. He flew on the private jet of one of her clients. Both McCain and the lobbyist deny any romantic relationship.
2. After dropping this speculative bomb, the Times reporters change the topic. They say it doesn't really matter whether McCain cheated on his wife. What matters is that there was "the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist." In other words, since McCain is a campaign finance reformer, he calls himself under a newsworthy cloud simply by being friendly with a lobbyist who is doing business with his office, even if that friendliness is platonic and otherwise above board, which it may well have been.
3. The third thread concerns McCain's long-time history as a reformer, who has often prompted criticism that he is not enough of a reformer all the time. Despite his crusades against improper influence in Washington, he has also participated in the influence game, including, famously, a role in the "formative" Keating Five scandal, which, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with the lady lobbyist. But McCain also may have done favors for telecommunications companies represented by the lady lobbyist, a fact that was more or less known to the public eight years ago.
4. Finally, there is the meta story: Current and/or former aides to McCain, it seems, are dishing dirt about him to the Times. This is the sort of thing that is very important to reporters in Washington. But most Americans, with good reason, don't care. And they shouldn't. Except for this fact: Because of this story there are now dozens of reporters chasing down all kinds of similar threads so they can try to "follow" the big murky scoop on the front page of the nation's most powerful newspaper. Let's all hope they can come up with something a bit more definitive.
http://www.time-blog.com/swampland/2008/02/cliff_notes_for_the_new_york_t.html 
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