The sign of The Times

The man, the myth, the plain spoken bloggerette father, John McCain has gotten himself into a spot regarding an alleged 'inappropriate relationship' with lobbyist Vicki Iseman. The accusations first surfaced in the New York Times, which of course, stands by its reporting. In the standard fashion of these kinds of debacles in a campaign season, the Senator from Arizona shot back denying the story and the allegations. This of course led to the closing of ranks among the media with the Washington Post reporting the story as well, because, well the Times can't possibly be wrong when it says 'the facts have been nailed down to our satisfaction.'

The story itself will not change the fact that McCain will still be the likely Republican nominee. Even if the bottom suddenly dropped out because of the story (which it won't), Mike Huckabee will not have the time to win enough delegates to beat out McCain (short of an act of God, which this story isn't). And it since the allegations are pre-Sept. 11, 2001 (1999? Yawn!) most voters (most of who don't read the New York Times or the Washington Post anyway) will likely just shrug and say "So? He says it didn't happen. That's good enough for me."

The bad part of all of this, of course, is that there likely is something that matters about this story and a lot of good reporting hours and fact-checking were probably devoted to it. The worst part is that we're going to see more of this sort of thing as the season progresses. If there truly is anything of substance wrong with the Gray Lady's reporting you can bet that a) there will be a terse correction that no one is going to read, b) there will be no apology for having gotten it wrong, and c) even if there is an apology or a even an A1 retraction (if such a thing ends up being merited) the damage to both parties in this dispute will already have been done. Nobody is perfect. And God only knows that there are plenty of shady lobbyists/campaign supporters making the rounds.

Because everything during persidential hunting season becomes magnified and malicious motives get ascribed to everything, especially where the Times is concerned, the lesson to be learned for the media (and it never is) is that taking a little bit more time and asking all the important questions three or four more times is probably a better course of action than running it to press. The lessons to be learned for the candidates (and they never are) is to thoroughly oppo yourself, and if you don't want bad press, then don't create it.