Post in Which I Make No One Happy, Including Myself
I have long believed Senator McCain to be in a class by himself when it came to hypocrisy and dishonesty. Meanwhile, over the last few months, it’s become clear that the New York Times has, as McCain aide Steve Schmidt said last week, put aside any pretense of objectivity, becoming instead an advocacy organization with the sole objective of electing Senator Obama.
This morning, the Times ran a lengthy story about McCain’s dubious ties to the gambling industry that illustrates both points.
As factions of the ferociously competitive gambling industry have vied for an edge, they have found it advantageous to cultivate a relationship with Mr. McCain or hire someone who has one, according to an examination based on more than 70 interviews and thousands of pages of documents.
I’ve read the story twice. It’s clear that this reporting is thorough and comprehensive. To my mind, it relies too much on anonymous sources, but the documentation certainly seems to support the story’s conclusions. Certainly, given McCain’s holier-than-thou attitude about, well, everything, it’s fair to hold him to a higher standard when it comes to issues like this one. Meanwhile, my preexisting views — some would says bias — about Senator McCain, certainly make me more likely to accept the story at face value.
Except that it comes from the Times.
Because while I have strong feelings about Senator McCain and his ethics, I have even stronger feelings about the Times‘ investigative coverage of the presidential campaign. In a word, it stinks. Each Sunday edition seems to bring a new front page screamer, attacking Senator McCain enough column feet of copy to paper Times Square. Meanwhile, each new story on Senator Obama is full of praise and adulation, while very real questions about his record and past associations are simply ignored.
The Times is supposed to be America’s top newspaper. When it comes to political coverage, it’s not even close. Heck, some of the foreign papers I read do a better job of covering the U.S political scene than the Times. And on the objectivity test, any fair observer would have to position the Times in the same ideological and unbalanced category as left-wing advocacy sites like the Huffington Post and Talking Points Memo.
Both the Times and Senator McCain have lessons to learn from today’s story. Sadly, I don’t think there’s much chance that either will do so.
Jim: Marshall, I think the difference between this cycle and 2004 is that this year, everybody’s turned into Dan Rather. We righty bloggers are like snipers trying to fight off an oncoming horde. Too many targets at once.
I don’t gamble with any frequency. I’ve lacked an office for an office March Madness pool. I don’t buy lottery tickets. I choose not to live in Atlantic City (a dump) or Las Vegas. But if other folks want to gamble, that’s their right. So the idea that an industry is hiring a senator’s former associates and is trying to develop a good relationship with a senator who once chaired the Commerce Committee — eh, well, it really is a case of being shocked, shocked, at finding gambling in this establishment.
You’ve got a beef with McCain, and it’s too well-founded for me to try to talk you out of it. Covering McCain for years has left me with a pretty mixed opinion of him - he’s great when he’s fighting for issues you believe in and a pain the ass when he isn’t. But of all the reasons to have doubts about McCain, his relationship with the gambling industry strikes me as pretty far down the list…
Tags: Barrack Obama, gambling, john mccain, new york times, steve schmidt