McCain and NY Times Integrity on the Line

It’s kind of weird when the second month of the year, the shortest month of every year, possibly decides the rest of your 2008. Maybe it’s a marriage, maybe it’s an unfortunate death, and maybe it’s something else that pertains just to you.

Either way, to have one day in the middle of February to decide the rest of the 300-day landscape that is the 12 month time interval we engross ourselves in is momentous to say the least.

This situation presents itself to John McCain. But it also presents itself to New York Times editor Bill Keller and his accomplished reporters of Jim Rutenberg, Mariyln W. Thompson, David D. Kirkpatrick, and Stephen Labaton. Because simply put, the Times yesterday released a 3,000 word bombshell on the left side of their front page that could change their reputation forever in a negative light for the rest of this political season (and maybe forever). Or it would (not could or should) signal the end for the Arizona senator’s presidential hopes and be the ultimate setback of all setbacks for a fractured, debilitated Republican Party.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. The intensity from both sides couldn’t be more conflicting. One side is going to go down in a heap of embarrassment, and both sides think it will be the other.

Or really?

The gantlet was thrown from the McCain party right back on Keller and crew so fast the last two days that it seemed the military veteran’s wife spoke longer on the microphone in Toledo. And seriously, have you ever heard Cindy McCain speak on the microphone? You probably thought Barack Obama’s two daughters uttered more statements than her so far in this campaign season. When she stepped on the podium to defend her husband against the claims of having a romantic affair with lobbylist Vicki Iseman eight long years ago, the acuteness of the situation was apparent. That was the prominent example of how serious and stern McCain was on this piece, and he needed to be. His whole party and his wife needed to be.

It’s actually amazing how McCain’s fierce fire back of denying all close relationship with Iserman happened in Ohio of all states. This usually deciding swing state was ready to potentially do its job nine months earlier than expected. But McClain made sure that the only losing that was going to occur yesterday in Buckeye land yesterday was the Times’ lofty journalistic status going away.

McCain was ever defiant, stern, and lambasted the paper, calling it “gutter politics”, which somewhere must have had Mitt Romney say “hypocrite” in his head (and oh, would he be one himself if he uttered that under his breath). His campaign team did the same thing, releasing a statement in yesterday’s paper before McClain added his own words out of his mouth. Next thing you know, you would have thought President George Bush was going to use the time zone difference in Kenya and speak on it first after dancing with the people there in his unusually timed but commendable tour of Africa. Everybody lined up behind him to have McCain back, ready to go to war on the illustrious paper like the Vietcong he fought some four decades ago.

Keller released his response, saying the report was “ready” for release, and elaborated on what is “ready.” But he and his esteemed status of reporters better be “ready” with a response to all the criticism from across the board they have taken. It wasn’t the expected bludgeoning that they received from the Rush Limbaugs and Pat Buchanan’s of the world, but when TIME’s editor Robert Thompson said he would never have given the thumbs up to this story, questions and doubts on the strength of the article were definitely justified. Now granted, TIME is a weekly magazine, the New York Times is a daily newspaper, but Thompson placed himself in the shoes of Keller in that situation. If he were editor of the paper, he would have not released that story.

The New York Times has taken a tremendously risky gamble with this controversial article. It is a brutal report that if true, would damage McCain forever and do the improbable: give the GOP nomination to Mike Huckabee, who backed McCain yesterday as well. It would be the ultimate disaster for the right (if it already isn’t for the way right with having to unify the party with McCain at the helm) in an election that some think could bring back the feeling of total annihilation the party suffered after Lyndon B. Johnson whitewashed Barry Goldwater in 1964. And that would happen, no matter if it’s Obama or Hilary Clinton, because Huckabee, despite all his charming moral sense, would be completely overmatched.

But that’s if they are right and McCain is lying, and with the lack of definite sources in this article, they are going to need more to prove that.

If they don’t, then shame on such a newspaper, the epitome of all newspapers in this country and potentially throughout the world for resorting to shabby journalism. The media world does not need more shots at its credibility, more vociferations of its partiality, more claims of it spinning it for one party. It is already a slight indictment to label some media, like the NY Times, CNN, and MSNBC, as liberal instead of truthful. Heck for that statement, this piece itself maybe seen as liberal. For the word “liberal” still gives off the feeling of biasness to someone or something, even if the definition for it begs to differ.

That is certainly the case of the paper with Bill Keller as the leader of it. He holds his paper’s supreme status on the line for this entire election year and maybe throughout if he doesn’t have his reporters display their sources. And not only his paper, but the rest of the media world, whether fair or not, will be questioned deeply for their coverage of now on out. Because if you are the first domino in line, and you start to fall, every other one will do the same.

In addition, the Times report could rally the entire Republican Party, even those lovely conservatives who always liked the idea of having tea with McCain, together to stand behind him. This situation would be just as congruent to Adidas and Reebok joining forces to stop Nike. They would back him fully if the liberal media seems to be out to sway the American public by having as much filthy dirt pile up on him. And it would be the thing the McCain party is wishing for the most right now, and could actually get just that.

Just a few weeks ago, the New York Times endorsed John McCain along with Hilary Clinton. Now the tables have turned in dramatic ways. Any chumminess that he potentially held for the paper is gone. One of these two will be placed into total abasement for the rest of the year, with the potential of sullying their integrity from now on out.

McCain and his party did what they had to do. Keller and his staff had better do the same. The stakes are too high for flimsy reports or haunting aspersions. Either one of these two things has happened, right in the month of February, just the second month of the year. And even if it happened this early, this so fast in the still incipient stages of 2008, someone’s integrity could go away just as fast.