Any guess what Steve Schmidt, the chief strategist of John McCain’s campaign, is talking about? It could be any of the major TV networks. It could be National Public Radio. It could be The Washington Post. But as it happens, it is The New York Times–the “venerable New York Times,” as a story on Breibart.com put it.
His fuller comment tells the story more completely. The Times, Mr. Schmidt said,
“is a pro-Obama advocacy organization that every day attacks the McCain campaign, attacks Senator McCain, attacks Governor Palin, and excuses Senator Obama.”
“This is an organization that is completely, totally, 150 percent in the tank for the Democratic candidate, which is their prerogative to be, but let’s not be dishonest and call it something other than what it is.”
“It is an organization that has made a decision to cast aside its journalistic integrity and tradition to advocate for the defeat of one candidate — in this case, John McCain.”
Was this a partisan comment? Of course it was, in the sense that it was made by someone who is working for, and looking out for the interests of, a political candidate. Was it also dead right, spot on, searingly accurate? You betcha.
It’s not just that the Times is “anti-McCain,” cheerfully willing to run front-page stories on his non-affair with a former publicist or refusing to publish an op-ed by the candidate responding to one by Barack Hussein Obama. It is also that it is patently, indeed embarrassingly, smitten by Obama–so smitten that its pieces on either candidate are indistinguishable from press releases disseminated by Obama campaign headquarters.
Way back in April, when the Times published another non-story–this one about Mr. McCain’s completely legitimate use of a corporate jet owned by a company run by his wife–I offered this anatomy of a typical Times non-story about a candidate it doesn’t like:
Here’s how the Times structures its non-stories about John McCain:
1. Prissy introductory sentence or two noting that Mr. McCain has a reputation [read “unearned reputation”] for taking the ethical high road on issues like campaign finance reform.
2. “The-Times-has-learned” sentence intimating some tort or misbehavior.
3. A paragraph or two of exposition that simultaneously reveals that a) Mr. McCain actually didn’t do anything wrong but b) he would have if only the law had been different and besides everyone knows he is guilty in spirit.
It’s really easy once you get the hang of it. Here’s how it looks in practice:
1. The Setup: “Given Senator John McCain’s signature stance on campaign finance reform, it was not surprising that he backed legislation last year requiring presidential candidates to pay the actual cost of flying on corporate jets. The law, which requires campaigns to pay charter rates when using such jets rather than cheaper first-class fares, was intended to reduce the influence of lobbyists and create a level financial playing field.”
The “Times-Touch” © here is in the opposition of Mr. McCain’s “signature stance” campaign finance reform and the ominous but as-yet-unstated malfeasance: Mr. McCain claims to be a reformer, but really . . . . The suggestion of hypocrisy is all the more potent for being left in the realm of innuendo.
2. The Execution: “But over a seven-month period beginning last summer, Mr. McCain’s cash-short campaign gave itself an advantage by using a corporate jet owned by a company headed by his wife, Cindy McCain, according to public records. For five of those months, the plane was used almost exclusively for campaign-related purposes, those records show.”
Oh dear. That’s bad, right? I mean, using your wife’s jet doesn’t sound too bad, really. Perfectly normal, in fact. Convenient that she has a spare jet he could use. But it must somehow be against the law, right? Otherwise it wouldn’t be news, would it? And if it wasn’t news, it wouldn’t be worth reporting. Right?
If you believe that, you don’t know the Times. Pay attention now:
3. The Obfuscation: Part one: “The senator was able to fly so inexpensively because the law specifically exempts aircraft owned by a candidate or his family or by a privately held company they control.”
Oh. Case closed, what? Not quite:
Part two: “The Federal Election Commission adopted rules in December to close the loophole — rules that would have required substantial payments by candidates using family-owned planes — but the agency soon lost the requisite number of commissioners needed to complete the rule making.
Because that exemption remains, Mr. McCain’s campaign was able to use his wife’s corporate plane like a charter jet while paying first-class rates, several campaign finance experts said. Several of those experts, however, added that his campaign’s actions, while keeping with the letter of law, did not reflect its spirit.”
Let’s summarize. McCain used his wife’s company’s jet. It was perfectly legal for him to do so. But some people the Times reporter talked to think it shouldn’t be legal. Therefore . . .
“Therefore” what? Therefore you run another several hundred words telling readers how many flights the plane made over a 7-month period, how much it costs per hour to fly the plane, what the F.E.C. rules are for “deadhead” flights, likely tax-consequences for Mrs. McCain’s company, ending with an all purpose disclaimer: “The Times analysis may be inexact for a variety of reasons.” Why? “For one, the Times suffers from crippling ideological bias that requires it to publish stories that are nothing more than a tissue of groundless insinuation and thinly veiled editorializing designed to discredit a candidate we don’t like but against whom we have no dirt, though we are digging as fast as we can . . .” Oops, wrong sentence: the reason the Times actually gave for its possible inexactness was “flight records do not show how many, if any, campaign travelers were aboard a plane on a given flight.” Good to know.
A reader wrote in to add this illuminating supplement:
“[R]egarding the non-violation of FEC rules: the article itself states that the FEC didn’t even begin not-adopting this new non-rule until December – and the travel in question took place from August through February. Not in any conceivable universe would McCain ever to have been held to have violated in August a rule that didn’t exist before December. And presumably if the FEC had had enough members to pass this rule in December, the McCain campaign would have then stopped doing whatever it is that the Times is so indignant about.”
“And WHY does the commission not have enough members to conduct business as usual? The Times is unusually reticent on that point. That’s because the reason the FEC doesn’t have enough members is that Barack Obama has blocked President Bush’s nominee from being confirmed.”
Of course, in the months since I wrote this, McCain’s candidacy has rocketed from moribund irrelevance to electrifying pertinence. It’s been clear to me since summer that, barring some extraordinary scandal, McCain was going to win, and win handsomely, but if I had any doubts they were dispelled by Obama’s politics-as-usual choice of Joe “Mr. Gaffe” Biden (see my post “The Neophyte and the Plagiarist“) as a running mate. And any shadow of an adumbration of a doubt was utterly exploded by McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate–a decision that was easily the most attention-grabbing act by either candidate of the entire campaign. Obama says his nomination marks the moment when the oceans stop rising and the planet began to heal itself, thus providing future satirists with their Dukais moment–McCain picks a running mate who totally galvanizes his supporters and reduces his opponent’s supporters to a state of blithering, often obscene, idiocy.
I am not in the habit offering offering advice to political candidates, but back in July I offered this tactic for the consideration of conservative candidates (It is good advice for conservatives in general, whether or not they are running for office):
Ignore The New York Times. More and more of your constituents are doing so, why shouldn’t you? Join the many happy folks who have Kicked the Times: Don’t read it, don’t refer to it, don’t regard it as an authority on anything. You’ll feel cleaner and your blood pressure will thank you. Above all, do not write, and do not allow your staff to write, op-eds for the Times. On the off chance that the paper actually publishes your piece, you will only help to bolster its sense of smug self-righteousness and perpetuate the illusion that the paper treats the candidates, or the issues, even-handedly. They don’t, and you shouldn’t collude in fostering the destructive myth that they do
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31 Comments
1. ic:Let’s face it, those who believe in the NYT are already head over heels for Obama with or without the NYT making a joke of itself. Those who disdain the NYT would not believe its McCain smears or Obama hypes.
Sep 23, 2008 - 12:39 am 2. J.J. Sefton:Roger:
Unfortunately I am stuck with the Times. My girlfriend is an ultra-liberal professor. More importantly, it is a perfect fit for my litterbox and since this area is one of my household duties, removing a soiled section every morning becomes somewhat of a pleasant experience.
Seriously, the paper’s readership is vanishing, right behind whatever credibility it had. With the organized character assassination campaign against Palin, the general public now openly distrusts the MSM, so much so that polls about media bias are out in the open and confirm those sentiments.
Gray Lady down. Hopefully out very soon.
Sep 23, 2008 - 3:34 am 3. The Postliberal:Schmidt’s straight talk about the Times, if nothing else, has made the McCain campaign worthwhile. Thanks for the elaborations, RK.
If Obama was a stock, the MSM would be the brokers whose firms underwrote and pushed it. Obama has no underlying value. Even his purely political support consists merely of non-binding opinion polls (which is what primary elections are, since nobody gets an office because of them). Obama’s standing in the current polls is very poor considering how badly many voters would like to see a Democrat and widespread concern about McCain’s age. Eventually voters who are hoping to vote for a Democrat will realize that the party simply failed to nominate a candidate. Whether it happens tomorrow or (help us!) after election day, the Obama bubble will burst. Indeed, the minute the Times or the Washington Post so much as blinks, a panic will begin, because there’s nothing Obama can do to regain any confidence he loses. He can only go down.
Sep 23, 2008 - 8:57 am 4. KD:Right you are, Roger.
John McCain has been electrifying this past week.
He will win handsomely, as you predict, and with Sarah Palin at his side like a Guardian Angel, Barack Obama can only go down.
How glorious to witness God’s Plan carred from President to President — Ronald Reagan to George H.W. Bush to George W. Bush and soon to John McCain! And now He will speak even more directly to all Christians — through Sarah Palin who holds a Master’s Commission diploma and has come to us blessed by her spiritual family (including the dynamic Pastor Thomas Muthee, whose prayers helped her secure Governorship of Alaska — Alaska, the Last Stronghold of the Final Generation!) engaged in a Spiritual War to purge the earth of demonic forces.
Obama will go down and the way will open for final fulfillment of Biblical prophecy through a Vice President (and possible President) who knows the real meaning of:
“All options remain on the table.”
Sep 23, 2008 - 10:02 am 5. mtraven:I hope you can convince William Kristol and David Brooks to join in your Times boycott. Why should they lend their prestigious names to such a rag?
Sep 23, 2008 - 10:04 am 6. runbei:Time to dig up and re-read “A Gang of Pecksniffs.” Mencken was a prophet.
Sep 23, 2008 - 10:17 am 7. Proteus:Roger:
You’ve been strangely quiet about the financial crisis and the proposed bail-out. Why?
Sep 23, 2008 - 11:23 am 8. mtraven:And by the way, here’s another prominent conservative who has decided to support Obama. Don’t be the last one left on the losing side!
Sep 23, 2008 - 11:44 am 9. Steynian 253 « Free Mark Steyn!:[...] ROGER KIMBALL– “… a pro-Obama advocacy organization that every day attacks the McCain [...]
Sep 23, 2008 - 2:31 pm 10. mtraven:And even George Will is sidling away from McCain. Man, the rats are certainly swarming off the ship thick and fast today.
Sep 23, 2008 - 4:24 pm 11. KD:One thing Leftists and conservative turn-coats don’t understand is that what’s important in this election is not experience or temperment. It is IDEOLOGY. That’s what matters most, and that’s why we must put John McCain and Sarah Palin in the White House.
Even if McCain becomes confused or proves himself to be incompetent (never a problem with our current President), we’ve still got Sarah Palin, who is young, charismatic, willing, and most likely malleable. Best of all, she’s a True Believer.
Moreover, through ideology alone we can continue to create our own reality, just as we’ve done the past eight years.
Sep 23, 2008 - 6:39 pm 12. Wadsy:KD: We could do no worst than McCain. for one thing we could have a president who believes that he is the messiah!!!! Now whose reality is that?
OBAMA = Oh 2 B A Messiah Always
Sep 23, 2008 - 8:12 pm 13. Nine-of-Diamonds:Sound advice. Complaining too stridently about media bias just energizes the biased journalists and gives their organizations more attention. It would be a better idea to use an indirect approach: establish relationships with alternative media outlets and only address the most egregious bias, such as stories misleading enough to produce a cause of action for slander/libel.
Sep 23, 2008 - 8:14 pm 14. KD:Right you are, Wadsy!
Barack Obama: an admitted Muslim who presents himself as the Second Coming of Christ! Pure madness. And it is blasphemy as well!
Please provide a link to the quote where he calls himself the Messiah. I’ve searched, but can’t find it. It would be a powerful weapon to use in the battle against Evil.
Ideology is all, and McCain/Palin remain the only choice.
The reality depicted in The Left Behind series is near at hand. God’s reality!
Sep 23, 2008 - 8:42 pm 15. dragonfly:There has never been an election like this. he advances in the cyber world have released a catatonic cacaphony at such a decibel level as to coddle the cranium. Thousands of websites, hundreds of thousands of bloggers, millions of commenters, a high percentage of them illiterate and ill-tepered, scrolling endlessly and witlessly.
It is depressing and purposeless, a seething universe of babble, nethier side gaining, now direction of flow, No hearts touched, no minds changed, totally polarized, providing no enlightenment.
The uncommitted voter is totally turned off. He/she is not interested in analysis or in-depth reports, or changing poll counts. They will ,ake up their minds of a “gut” basis, commonsense and tuition. Whic side seems closes to America’s tradional values. which side seems most like the old time big city machine politics and sit-on-your- ass year in, year out Cngressional politics.
The GOP will not win on issues; it will gain victory by defeating the sleazy, Chicago machine politics, the pathological secretive behavior, the egomania and socialist commitment of Obama and the 35 years of snoozing of Biden.
So stop with he nattering over nuances Hammer on Obama’s multitudinous weaknesses, mock and ridicule him, stay on his back, force him to answer the hard questions of why he tries to cover his sleazy past, why his wife is not registered as a lobbyist, what kind of kickback he got from crooked real estate developoers. Fair? Absolutely. He never was vetted or e wouldn’t have made it to the primaries.
Sep 23, 2008 - 10:55 pm 16. gaetano catelli:beautiful analysis, Roger, of how The Obama Daily Journal (nee The New York Times) seeks to score points against McCain/Palin under the guise of “journalism”.
mtraven: there’s a delicious (unintended) irony in the ODJ’s choice of Brooks and Kristol as the their token conservative od/ed regulars. unlike their Obama partisans, who indulge in crude mockery and bloody shirt rhetoric with reckless abandon, as tokens Messrs Brooks and Kristol have to be well mannered, wear a rhetorical suit and tie at all times, and generally comport themselves as “a credit to their kind” — like the people of color and the women who were “firsts” in fields from which they’d previously been excluded. (yes, Safire was the very first, but Kristol and Brooks remain mere tokens.)
the overall effect on those of us readers who are both ideological moderates and grownups ourselves is that one side of their op/ed staff appears to contain sober grownups, while the other side seems to be the playpen of overprivileged children.
Sep 24, 2008 - 4:01 am 17. KD:Excellent analysis, draonfly.
The pathological and secretive behavior of the Obama camp is unprecedented. Why, just compare his secretive, egomaniacal behavior with the honest transparency of the George W. Bush administration! Not to mention the way Sarah Palin has been so openly available to an unjustly curious nation and press!
Sep 24, 2008 - 5:27 am 18. KD:The GOP will win by running on its record of Accountablity and Personal Responsibility. It will win because John McCain has proven himself a Master Communicator. It will win because Sarah Palin is a True Soldier of Christ. It will win because Barack Obama is illiterate and ill-tempered, sleazy, weak and un-American.
Sep 24, 2008 - 6:00 am 19. Jack Klompus:I’m KD! Hail my impeccable sarcastic wit as I masturbate furiously to my own words as I read them repeatedly beneath my growing cloudier screen! I may pass out soon from asphyxiation due to narcissistic convulsions reveling in my mastery of sarcastic brilliance and unmatched turn of phrase! Oh I have those Christians quivering beneath the greatness by which I mock and deride them with my uncanny insight and barbs of hysterical ego-shattering jest! Oh I love me I love me I love me I love me!
Sep 24, 2008 - 7:28 am 20. mtraven:The left is full of over-privileged children? May I remind you that the right-wing commentariat is full of undistinguished hacks who owe their positions solely to neopotism: Jonah Goldberg, John Podhoretz, William Kristol, and Adam Bellow (who had to write a whole book defending the practice). I won’t count Christopher Buckley, who is that rarity on the right, a conservative who manages to retain not only a smidgen of independent thought but even a functioning sense of humor.
Sep 24, 2008 - 8:47 am 21. ricpic:The NY Times is a homosexual organ (pun intended). Everything flows from that fact.
Sep 24, 2008 - 1:13 pm 22. KD:Poor Jack. Your vulgar, puerile remark smacks of desperation.
Sep 24, 2008 - 1:26 pm 23. gaetano catelli:mtraven: “The left is full of over-privileged children? May I remind you that the right-wing commentariat is full of undistinguished hacks who owe their positions solely to neopotism: Jonah Goldberg, John Podhoretz, William Kristol, and Adam Bellow (who had to write a whole book defending the practice). I won’t count Christopher Buckley, who is that rarity on the right, a conservative who manages to retain not only a smidgen of independent thought but even a functioning sense of humor.”
i didn’t write that the left has a monopoly on childish chatterers (of course, it doesn’t). what i did write was that it is ironic that the NYT’s portside bias has resulted in their providing a showcase only for those conservative voices who seem quite reasonable and mature, at the same time that it presents several voices on the left who sound like obnoxious spoiled children.
Sep 24, 2008 - 1:47 pm 24. Jack Klompus:Just calling you out on your tired, played out routine for what it is – unfunny, self-indulgent tripe lacking even an iota of the wit that you are so convinced you possess.
Sep 24, 2008 - 7:02 pm 25. KD:Very bright, Jack.
Why don’t you go back and refute one single thing I’ve said.
Let’s see how witty you are. Go ahead, give it a shot.
Sep 24, 2008 - 7:32 pm 26. Nine-of-Diamonds:@ Jack – Quit being a bully. Our resident O-Drone “comedians” need encouragement. I seem to remember a real knee-slapper the other day about gang rape and black men. Of course, the Lightworkers’ little helpers promptly tried to justify it in their passive-aggressive way. Part of their “new kind of politics”, you see. HOPE AND CHANGE!
Sep 24, 2008 - 8:33 pm 27. Jack Klompus:I knew you’d come off your pedestal with enough poking of your bloated ego. Refute what? You assert nothing. Your entire shtick is this lame, sarcastic mocking of religious people, people right of center in their views, and anyone else you deem of lesser enlightened views than those which you smugly embrace. Your sanctimony and superior attitude oozes from every lamely crafted line you pen. You’re not funny. You’re not clever. You’re just an obnoxious, sarcastic, egotistical bore that thinks your smarter and more clever than anyone who dares dissent from your one-dimensional, holier than thou pseudo-progressive posture. But yet you fail to see that it is YOU that are the joke.
Sep 25, 2008 - 7:06 pm 28. KD:You’re a coward, Mr. Klompus. As I suspected.
Sep 25, 2008 - 8:42 pm 29. KD:On second thought, Jack, I owe you and everyone here an apology. I should have realized what first-rate minds I’m dealing with. Mature minds tempered by the humility that comes with great learning.
Yes, I’m ashamed of mocking the dignity of Sarah Plain’s church. Forgive me.
And please forgive me for my lame attempt to ridicule the even-handed approach to politics one finds on this blog. I bow before my betters and shall renounce my pen forever.
Sep 25, 2008 - 9:11 pm 30. Nine-of-Diamonds:@ Jack: I’ve noticed in the past few days how the Proggs’ anti-religious obsession against Palin is coming back to bite them. Notice that since her selection Obama has abandoned his campaign to reach out to disaffected cultural conservatives in the Red States. There was talk about winning Montana, South Dakota, etc – not anymore. For all their platitudes about winning over Christians from the EVIL RELIGIOUS RIGHT, Leftists never really could conceal their disdain for the believers. Palin’s nomination was the catalyst for the most over-the-top display of secularist bigotry in years. If Obama does win it will only be because of the secular progs and minority grievance groups that make up the usual Liberal base. A major opportunity for them to diversify their constituencies has been thrown away.
Obviously, the opposite is true – SP alienates some moderates because of her religion – but McCain probably needed to secure his base more than anything else.
Sep 26, 2008 - 1:55 pm 31. Jack Klompus:9 o’ D — exactly. Sniveling little non-entities like KD flutter on in this belief that packaging themselves in this persona of biting wit and sarcastic disdain merits them some lofty place in the pantheon of commentary. But they are so transparent, so one-dimensional, so obvious and predictable in their trite, boring, self-aggrandizing routines. KD obviously thinks he’s a paragon of wit, “Oooh I’ll stick it to these Neanderthal ‘right-wingers’ with my devastating social commentary routine!” Then when you don’t give them the attention akin to when a toddler throws a tantrum they lash out. It’s kind of fun to roll their eyes at them like a stern teacher not giving in to the class clown.
Oct 1, 2008 - 5:37 pmKD – coward? Bring it any time anywhere you spineless little unfunny loser. First of all, you couldn’t carry Roger’s jock when it comes to intellect and accomplishment. You’re just a pathetic little tool getting your jollies on the internet because you possess a pedestrian intolerance of anything alien to your packaged, unquestioned secular views. You’ve been called out on your lame, tired, smug little act and now you’ve got your inch long member between your legs, you spineless little weenie. Leave your info anytime, you pretentious pseudo-intellectual j-off and I’ll show you cowardice.