Why Did the McCain Story Go Bye-Bye?

The Obama/anonymous Captain story will not go away. The story wasn't proven true by Jake, just that there was a person behind it. Just like Dan Rather

Apparently the NY Times is easily manipulated and the reporter inmates are
in charge of the asylum. Not only does slip shod reporting get past editorial review standards, but the paper readily
accepts tacky moveon.org ads while the
management endorses McCain for President.
Everybody gives the NY Times too much
credit. Having said that, John McCain does not have a blemish-free record in the past, but unless something substantive and fairly recent can be
"nailed down" beyond rumor mill level
they may want to consider enlarging
the comic section to sell newspapers.

John McCain did the right thing. He held a news conference and took all the questions and gave his answers. He was adult enough to face the accusations and wants to put it to rest. Let the people decide if they believe him or not. At least McCain had the guts to face the scandal personally, not like Michelle (never proud to be an American in her adult life) have her cronies speak for her!

Probably went away because it was lame - real lame

Look, a bunch of us out here on the right have been warning our more moderate Republican brethren for months -- nay, the better part of a decade -- that McCain's apparently popularity was built on a cloud of positive media attention that would vanish as soon as he became the Republican nominee. We said he wasn't so very clear, he wasn't so very honest, and he would be made to look pretty bad once the press turned on him.

Now, he's the presumptive nominee, and guess what's happening to his press coverage?

Mark is probably right. We're going to hear more of this. Lots and lots more. Democrats screw up everything they touch, but they know how to assassinate character like they invented it, and that's what they're going to do to McCain.

"The story vanished because they like him?" Please. The story vanished because it's manifestly sleaze. But don't worry, there will be another. And another. And one just after the Republican convention. And one after a successful debate. And one three days before the election, so it can't be rebutted.

This is How Democrats Do It. Nothing new here, move along, everybody...

(I do cover this on my blog, http://www.plumbbobblog.com/?p=207.)

John Weaver isn't an anonymous source.

He has been running campaigns for years.

He talked about confronting Iseman, and her acknowledgement of the behavior.
Why do people cherry pick this article so much? Why don't they talk about the non-anonymous sources?

Rick, there was never any doubt that the facts Dan Rather talked about were true. What was not on the up and up were the particular documents being used. Bush was in truth the draft dodging war hawk in the Vietnam era who dropped out, so to speak, of the Texas National Guard and because of his connections managed to get away with it. We all know this except those who refuse to accept the countless pieces of evidence that he did!
Whenever I think about Bush involving this country in a needless, stupid war in Iraq, I get mad all over again at the chicken hawk!

1. Eight years ago, with no rumors since, equals a lot of doubt.

2. Democrats are focused on Obama/Clinton. McCain supporters don't believe the story. That leaves only Huckabee's people to be concerned about it, and they don't believe anything they read in the NYT anyway. If they read the NYT, which they don't. :-)

I just *LOVE* how kneejerk predictable the libs are on stories like this. Some lib media source prints allegations that cannot be proved, and then the libs take false gossip and start calling it a "scandal". Very sad but very funny at the same time.

The Times story was so vague and confusing to me that I wondered what it was really trying to say. Probably, the paper carefully worded the story in order to avoid a legal battle and in so doing made it very nebulous under all the constraints.

The people who want to complain about the timing of the NYT article seem to forget from where John McCain's popularity (and credibility) has grown since October 2007 when the story was first being investigated. In October McCain's poll numbers were in the low-mid teens. THAT's when a "damaging" story about him would have been most effective. His steady climb in popularity since then has lessened the impact of any negative story. So now, when McCain is the presumptive nominee with his highest-ever poll ratings, this story damages him LESS than ever before. People who want to bash the NYT, just want to bash the NYT. They probably owe the Times a thanks for doing its famous complete research and thereby publishing this story when the candidate can best weather it.

I'm afraid the story isn't over at all for McCain, as you will learn when reading Newsweek's shots in McCain's rebuttal (and they're pretty damaging for his account) or The Washinton Post continuing the saga on McCains,s dealings with lobbyists.

I think the trouble is potentially very great for McCain though he's acting now like it was only a bleeding nose. Which I guess is the right thing to do. But the dirtiest part, when you read between the lines, of the articles in the NYT and the WP are in the info they clearly have but do not release YET. These appears to be some agenda of hijacking McCain's campaign on specific issues (lobbyists, special interests, political ethics), and in fact they are threatening him with the publication of more damaging material.

I don't have the impression that the NYT; the WP, Newsweek, Huffington Post etc. will leave the story alone for the weeks and maybe months to come.

You can be sure that more stories will follow, new questions will be raised, and yes: under every politician's bed their some skeletons waiting to show their scary heads to the public.

Liberals never give up do they?

11) The story is obviously untrue.

Any thinking person knows it was the NY times trying to rig the election, they held the story and knew it. They endorsed McCain making him the presumptive nominee, thinking they could sink him with this story later, there by electing a democrat. Had they released the story before NH primary, Mitt Romney would be the nominee and the NY Times would have no story to trash him with.

This story reads as a liberal agenda piece. Whenever I hear the Times with an "exclusive, explosive" piece, I am skeptical. I can no longer trust this paper. Their McCain piece reached a new low in journalism with innuendo and no source. The piece reads to me like this: "There may be possibly a relationship, but we're not sure." Wall Street Journal for me!

Why does this NY Times article remind me of Dan Rather, and his pathetic statement that even though his document was proven to be fraudulent, he still thought it correct?

jpt,

There's more to the story than McCain is saying and probably a little less than the NYT is saying.

Somewhere, there's a middle ground to this story in a factual sense, and that middle ground is not good for McCain.

I Think that McCain is a pretty decent guy. I think that the press really likes him. However, I do think that the story written in the NYT is pretty much accurate.

My theory is that the NYT really wanted to bury this story because of their feelings for McCain. However due to pressure from the reporters and other Newspapers (the Washington Post, not the New Republic), Kellar had to print it. So they watered it down a bit and released it during a time where McCain would not be hurt by it.

I think the press in general is too easy on McCain, and this case is no exception.

It is interesting that every scandal for Bill Clinton had ripples for months. Maybe we're a) tired of scandals, b) think the timing is petty, c) think unnamed sources have to be petty because they're unnamed, and d) because of that pettiness--and the lack of courage to come out and be named as a source--we don't want to give them credence.

I do think it's had a desirable effect--it rallied the conservatives behind McCain. I think personally, that the leak was planned and that's WHY the source is unnamed. Conservatives needed to see McCain as strong, the NYT as squirrelly, and THEIR frontrunner under attack. Really, what choice do they have now? They must protect their future presidential choice. This was a brilliant piece of media manipulation.