Below The Beltway

As expected, the New York Times’ story about John McCain’s relationship with a lobbyist nearly half his age is generating a lot of commentary in the blogosphere. Here’s some of the more interesting stuff out there this morning.

Megan McArdle asks the same question I did after I finished reading the story:

McCain strikes me as a fundamentally honorable guy . . . so honorable that he doesn’t realize when he’s getting himself in a mess. Most politicians would do the risky things, but take more care not to get caught. I’m not sure whether this is a feature or a bug.

(…)

CNN notes “This may end up being a story about the New York Times as about John McCain.” One does kind of wonder why they’re breaking an eight year-old story now.

National Review’s Rich Lowry also wonders about the timing:

The Times appears to have done what any conservative media critic would have predicted—sat on the story until the day after John McCain declares himself the nominee. It’s hard to imagine the Times advanced the story much since December. If it did, just how weak was it back then?

Reason’s Matt Welch wonders why anyone should be surprised by the story:

Those who really care about such things have known since at least 2000, and likely much earlier, that McCain does favors for campaign contributors, and has not always been the most faithful of husbands. I care not at all about the latter; while the former is one of many constant, low-level irritants people like me experience when reading yet another newspaper editorial about what a saint the guy is. The only thing new today is the name and details of a specific woman deemed by McCain’s 2000 campaign as particularly radioactive for whatever reason.

And James Joyner thinks the Times engaged in some pretty shoddy journalism:

Nine years ago, aides were concerned that there might be an appearance of impropriety and sought to distance a candidate running on the need to reform lobbying from a lobbyist. Why is this front page news in the most important paper in the country?

When did the Times start this “investigation”? Clearly, they haven’t finished it since they have nothing here beyond allegation. Yet they’ve given it the most prominent space in the paper. But when did they start? Since all this happened during McCain’s last presidential campaign — which famously had flocks of reporters tagging along on the bus the whole way — didn’t they have some inkling of all this then. For that matter, were they working on the story when they endorsed McCain for the nomination only three weeks ago?

The story takes care to remind us, early and often, of the Keating Five scandal — about which “some people” thought McCain “got off too lightly.” To get quotes from people about McCain being “imprudent.” To get numerous denials that the relationship between McCain and Iseman was anything but professional — without giving any indication as to why one would think otherwise.

As I noted myself earlier this morning, there is an astonishing lack of substance to a story that not only appears on the front page under the byline of four Times reporters, but also has allegedly been under investigation for month.

And just what is the story here ?

Is the Times alleging that McCain did favors for people like Iseman’s clients ? Well, that’s not really much of a surprise, and it’s not all that clear that anything McCain did in contacting the FCC on their behalf violated any ethics laws.

Or is the Times really trying to titillate us with unsubstantiated allegations of a romantic relationship ?

And, even more importantly, why did the Times sit on this story for two months while the Republican race was being decided ?