I would venture to guess that most people didn't even read the actual NY Times article.

New Yorker: I hate to differ with you about MIchelle Obama being "ALL THAT"!!!!!!! Mrs. Obama for supposedly being a well-educated woman has no "CLASS" at all.

First of all what kind of a FirstLady material would say about the other democratic candidate (Hillary Clinton) that if she wins the nomination she (Mrs; Obama) will not support her. Now there's a classy answer from a woman whom should try like her husband to keep the democratic party together.

Secondly, she has the nerve to tell the world that Hillary Clinton should clean up her house before she goes out into the world to run for office of the president of the United States.

Thirdly, she's only now proud to be an AMerican because her husband is running for president.

She is the most arrogant, self=indulging,cocky, bad-mouth candidate's wife that is running in this election for the title of First Lady.

Now some people are comparing Michelle to ...Jackie Kennedy!! I almost spit out my drink when I heard that. People are starting to gag at all this Obama worship. It will definitely backfire.

Yawn.

Now we know why the Times Endorsed
John McCain! They kept this sourceless
piece of gossip under wraps fully
intending to use it against McCain as it became clear that he would be the
Republican Nominee!
Obviously McCain and his wife have been scoring points against the Obamas this
week and the Times felt it had to do something to protect its Candidate,
even if it meant spreading a false unsourced story!
Do Conservatives need any other reason to support Jihn McCain then this vicious, bogus attack from the NY Times!

There's no question about John McCain's ethics, he simply doesn't have any.

"Bill Clinton kind of made this sort of stuff irrelevant for me. Did he or didn't he? Big deal. Sink a man on substance, not on rumor, innuendo and stale sensation. "
We've HAD IT with suspicion and gossip and rumor!! Find a better way to sell newspapers: tell the truth and report important and relative facts. Like where a candidate stands on helping the poor. Or making sure that every decent highschool student gets the chance to go to college. And whether he or she is truly for "right to life" or just "RIGHT TO BIRTH"!!!

Talking about the Keating Five scandal or Cindy McCain's drug addiction is silly. Its all out in the open. No one has denied it. I'm really sick of the self-righteous Obama'idiots. You're just lucky that the press has given Obama a total free pass this election cycle and the Far Right loonies hate McCain more than they hate borderline socialist unqualified empty suits like Obama. They (the right wing pundits) see Obama as Jimmy Carter - someone whose incompetence will lead to the second coming of Reagan. Anyway, this article is full of innuendo. No substantial facts. The NY Times should be ashamed of their shoddy journalism. But I shouldn't be surprised. The liberal press is just doing their little bit to ensure that Obama wins the Presidency this year. Sad.

Doesnt the timing of this "story" strike the readers as slightly bogus? The NYT held on to this for how long? are you kidding me? Any garbage printed against ANY candidate at this point is nothing more than opportunistic "journalism". Kudos on your "sources" NYT. All the news that are profittable to print.

How ironic that some on the far right are now the ones trying to claim the 'smear campaign' might be the machinations of the 'vast left-wing conspiracy'.

That statement from the McCain camp doesn't deny it the way Bubba tried to, and the woman in some of the other pictures I've seen looks a lot like a younger version of Cindy McCain. So not only is the woman seemingly his 'type', given McCain's history of affairs and favoratism, the circumstantial evidence in the Times article, and the way the story seems to have broke (before the primaries, from a former campaign insider who's probably now working for a competing campaign) - my gut says he probably did have an affair.

That being said, I'd still vote for him over Hillary if Hillary were to get the nomination. It just doesn't seem like affairs and insider favoratism are that unusual in politics for it to rule anybody out any more - it certainly doesn't make him any worse than the Clintons. Like it's not like he's ever held himself up as a 'values voters' guy the way David Vitter did - barf!

pereznj in miami, you are absolutely right. now that the media have managed to get obama past hillary, they're working on getting obama past mccain. i've lost all respect for all media. i think we should verify everything they tell us or not believe it. some stuff we can verify by looking to the source (congressional record, watching the debate ourselves rather than listening to them tell us what they say happened, etc.). if we can't verify it, we shouldn't believe it. and of course the timing is bogus - mccain took a couple of swipes at obama, plus obama and his wife put their feet in their mouths this week, so it's time to put out something negative about the opponent. what amazes me is that people don't see through the nonsense.

reaganfan and murphy, you are absolutely right. anything they can do to get obama elected they are willing to do. journalistic ethics are history.

Mccain is a hypocrite. He is the wrong man in the house. He is a bad choice for conservatives. Period.

As for the timing, it sounds like everybody suspects it favors another candidate - I'm surprised to hear Hillary supporters think it favors Barack, because my first thought was that the NYT was trying to release it now to help Hillary's poll numbers against a prospective McCain match-up which might affect Barack's electability advantage.

Conversely McCain supporters and Republicans in general aren't distinguishing between either Hillary or Obama supporters, they're just generally lashing out at all of us.

The only one nobody's pointing the finger at is Huckabee - isn't he the one with the most to gain out of all the remaining candidates? He's the 'values voters' guy, it's only the far-right who really cluck their tongue at affairs the unnamed source who was a FORMER McCain campaign staffer is possibly a CURRENT campaign staffer of another Republican, and it's do or die for his campaign.

Everybody knows the only way to stop an inevitable candidate is to bring them down with a 'major gaffe'. Hillary tried it with the 'plaigiarism' thingie - I think this affair scandal might be Huckabee's thingie. When the NYT dragged their heels on the article, maybe they released the info to a competing publication to speed up it's release?

It's not the affair (or not affair) that bugs me (even though its disgusting), but the continual use of lobbyists for personal favors, and the pandering to big business and Washington insiders. This guy says he learned something from the Keating5 deal, but evidently all he learned is to try to cover it up better. What's more, I think the bigger story has yet to be uncovered. Read up on how he passed legislation to force the Hopi-Navajo people off of their native lands, causing them great hardship, loss of income, livelihoods, culture and even life. Why? So big business mining could come in and steal their coal to light up the Las Vegas strip. Sickening. Just try the search engine for info and see what you come up with.

I suspect a "vast right-wing conspiracy" if that's not being too plagiaristic !

I'm supporting Obama but respect McCain. I read the whole article and didn't locate any real "news" in it. What the heck is going on at the NYT?? The only thing I noticed is when they said that both aides said: "Mr. McCain acknowledged behaving inappropriately" Unless they can elaborate on that, this story is dribble.

The New York Times lower its' standards? Ridiculous!! The New York Times has no ethical standards...it is 'all the news that is fit to slant'.
The Times will not publish any negatives about The Annointed One (Obama), and no positives about a rival. They did it before, and shall do it again. All hail the Annointed One; the Times is waiting for Him to walk up the Potomac to assume His rightful position...

Proving yet again what a blatant liar McCain is, in the same mode and corruption of Bush. His lack of moral character has continued unabated since his role in Keating 5; he has just learned to obfuscate and dissemble his way around ripping the taxpayer off. Well, he has been caught again. This thug and tyrant can be seen coming from 200 miles away, if Americans would just open their eyes half way this time. Otherwise we are all doomed.

This starts to make Mike Huckabee look pretty attractive, doesn't it? At least no-one can accuse him of being a Washington insider. I rather like the idea of someone who reformed the economy, infrastructure and schools in a nearly all Democratic state. Then he left with an $800,000,000 surplus after starting with a deficit. In 10+ years he turned the old ways upside down, and didn't compromise his values to do it. Then he runs campaign on a shoestring budget that has the inside crowd so scared they are putting in an all-out effort to combat him.