McCain and That N.Y. Times Story

The New York Times may turn out to be the best friend John McCain has.

As it has become clearer that McCain will be the Republican nominee, it seems he's had more and more difficulty persuading conservatives that he's one of them.

For that matter, based on the ratings from the God-o-Meter, he may be having problems with religious conservatives as well. His overall ranking is not only behind party challenger Mike Huckabee, his ranking also trails the two Democratic contenders, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Conservatives aren't much of a threat to defect to the Democrats. But McCain's problem is what to do to motivate them to go to the polls and vote for him instead of staying home.

In the short term, he may have found the assistance he needs in the pages of the Times, says Steve Chapman in the Chicago Tribune.

Referring to the article about the allegedly improper relationship between McCain and a young lobbyist eight years ago, Chapman writes, "Years from now, if you type into Google, 'Why do people hate the news media?' this story will pop up."

McCain may always be suspect in conservative circles, but Chapman notes that "[conservatives] may come to echo what was said about Grover Cleveland when he was nominated for president in 1884: 'We love him most for the enemies he has made.'"

For now, conservatives are defending McCain against the evil New York Times.

For the newspaper's part, Clark Hoyt writes that executive editor Bill Keller has been trying to explain what the New York Times intended to say in the article. He says the article was "about a man nearly felled by scandal who rebuilt himself as a fighter against corruption but is still 'careless about appearances, careless about his reputation, and that’s a pretty important thing to know about somebody who wants to be president of the United States.'"

Hoyt acknowledges, "The newspaper found itself in the uncomfortable position of being the story as much as publishing the story, in large part because, although it raised one of the most toxic subjects in politics -- sex -- it offered readers no proof that McCain and [Vicki] Iseman had a romance."

I understand what the writers thought they were saying in the article. But most readers apparently thought they were implying something else.

And, as is the case with the flap over Michelle Obama's recent comments about being proud of her country for the first time in her adult life and the entities involved in that matter, the Times has to deal with the perception in the McCain story.

Because perception has become reality.

"Some of the loudest voices of the modern conservative movement -- Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Gary Bauer, CBN.org -- flogged the Times while hardly pausing to consider the underlying facts of the story," wrote Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei in The Politico.

The response to all this suggests to me that the Times should (1) know by now the nature of its political opposition and what it takes to set it off (usually, not much), (2) take as many editorial steps as necessary to make sure the phrasing of an article as potentially incendiary as Thursday's is not ambiguous and (3) always be prepared to defend itself.

I know the Times endorsed McCain in the New York Republican primary, but that doesn't matter. For most conservatives, McCain's clash with the newspaper is a microcosm of the confrontation conservatives feel they face with the "liberal" New York Times and its allies all the time.

Conservatives believe the Times is part of a "liberal conspiracy" in the media, and they feel obliged to defend anyone who is "attacked" by the Times.

Perception trumps reality.