Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost
my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of
myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation,
Iago, my reputation! — Michael Cassio in Othello
The above line relates quite nicely to a report from the New York Times today
stating that John McCain may have had an affair. Or that he may
have acted unethically as a legislator. Or, that he may have simply
committed the sin of giving the appearance of both. What it has
revealed, most importantly, is that John McCain has trouble living
up to his own standards, no matter how inadvertently he strays from
them. (Full disclosure: I used to work for the Times as a
researcher in the editorial department with libertarian columnist
John Tierney. My office was in the Washington Bureau, and so I
freely conversed with the journalists there — including a few of
the reporters who worked on this story.)
It was inevitable that McCain would be questioned on ethics,
considering his visibility on the issue. But the pseudo-muckraking
philosophy underlying McCain-Feingold, “ethics reform,” and other
“do-gooder” bills that placed him at odds with conservatives has
come back to bite him in a Times article that highlights
moments in his career where he could have been seen as doing
something unseemly. Though his campaign vigorously denies doing anything wrong, it’s
well worth noting that McCain’s philosophy would still require
punishment for groups of citizens wishing to exercise their first
amendment rights prior to an election. In other words, citizens are
expected to take McCain at his word when he won’t do the same for
them.
Make no mistake: The Times story is thinly sourced, and
heavy on already-reported information. Admittedly the former is
necessary to investigative political reporting, and drives campaign
teams up the wall (which makes it worth it). But the timing is key.
According to Jonathan Martin and Jim Geraghty, this article had been leaked to
Drudge in December, when it was to be published among other
articles in a series (“The Long Run”) about the candidates running in
the primaries. At that time, the Times had already
published a rather favorable piece about McCain as a father. The
editors, apparently, decided to hold this story rather
than run it earlier, with the bulk of the series, which places them
(and not the reporters) squarely in the center of yet another bias
controversy. Those flames were fanned by Matt Drudge’s headline:
“NOW THAT HE’S SECURED NOMINATION: NYT DOWNLOADS ON MCCAIN.”
Taken from the perspective of former McCain staffers, the new
report leads with its chin, as “waves of anxiety sweep through his
small circle of advisers”:
A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at
fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a
client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become
romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the
candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the
woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly
confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on
the condition of anonymity.
Not only was McCain suspected of being romantically involved, but
he had to be chained to the mast of his campaign ship so as not to
heed the lobbyist’s siren call. Yet the notion of a sex scandal is
aborted — quickly — because of denials by the parties involved,
and most importantly, a complete lack of evidence.
The insinuation of the affair is questionable, and perhaps
libelous (even repeating an unsubstantiated rumor is considered
libelous, especially when in a top national publication).
The rest of the report discusses similar episodes — moments where
McCain probably didn’t do anything wrong (see this post by David Freddoso on the
Washington Post version of the story) So the story is
simply a catalogue of potential sins that are never realized,
offered by sources that are never named. No wonder McCainiacs are
ticked. Yet this is precisely the sort of scrutiny of moral
conscience that McCain has supported.
The NRA and the ACLU both can’t buy ad time in the days before
an election because doing so, by virtue of the ethical senator’s
own philosophy, is manipulating the people and hurting democracy.
But when McCain hops a flight with a campaign contributor, it ought
to be obvious that he’s maintaining his integrity. Why is it that
associations comprised of every day citizens are suspect, but a
powerful politician is not?
Sure, it’s a bait and switch. But it’s a very good one because
it demonstrates the very problem presented by the John McCain
School of Ethics. This is not a story about what happened. It’s a
story about what could have happened. What was feared to have
happened. What, it must be assumed in good faith, did not happen.
Campaign advisers were afraid that “the appearance of a close bond
with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate
committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of redemption and
rectitude that defined his political identity.”
While it’s clear that supporters and passers-by will dismiss the
Times report as overblown in its importance (and, of
course, heap onto the Times for being incautious about its
use of sources), the dredging up of a real ethics flap
will not help a man who has made ethics a cornerstone of his
campaign. But the story might have a few positive effects after
all.
Conservatives will likely rally for McCain. McCain will have the
opportunity to show just how comfortable he is with transparency
and talk to the press in a way that Americans will appreciate.
He’ll have a chance to highlight his record as a reformer in
Congress. And the New York Times’s public editor, Clark
Hoyt, will have a very entertaining column attempting to explain
what happened.
