After Hillary Clinton withdrew from the race for the Democratic nomination, Maureen Dowd wrote in the New York Times:
It’s good news for Obama that Hillary’s out of the race. But it’s also bad news. Now Republicans can turn their full attention to demonizing Michelle Obama. Mrs. Obama is the new, unwilling contestant in Round Two of the sulfurous national game of “Kill the witch.â€
Perhaps, Dowd should be paying more attention to her editors and colleagues at the Times. It seems they’ve been playing their own sulfurous game.
First, it was a hit piece on Sarah Palin (leaving out the Alaska Governor’s accomplishments), an actual female candidate for public office. Now, they’ve chosen to demonize Cindy McCain. Their reporter Jodi Kantor even e-mailed (via Facebook) a friend of the McCains’ youngest daughter Bridget to ask her “advice” about covering Mrs. McCain.
Well, I guess a teenager could give a New York Times reporter some advice. The article reads like opposition research on a candidate for public office. And Mrs. McCain is not herself a candidate, just the spouse.  And the Times was once the paper of record, not the house organ of one candidate.
I wonder if Dowd has anything to say about her paper’s “unprecedented attack on a presidential candidate’s spouse.” Commenting on the Times article, McCain campaign blogger Michael Goldfarb writes:
The New York Times has stooped lower than this campaign ever imagined possible in an attempt to discredit a woman whose only apparent sin is being married to the man that would oppose that paper’s preferred candidate, Barack Obama, in his quest for the Presidency. It is a black mark on the record of a paper that was once widely respected, but is now little more than a propaganda organ for the Democratic party. The New York Times has accused John McCain of running a dishonorable campaign, but today it is plain to see where the real dishonor lies.
Kind of sounds like the way the Times covered Palin, paint a woman in the worst possible light, ignore her accomplishments, the good work she has done. What does the paper have against Republican women? Maybe Maureen Dowd should look into this.
Words escape me. Editorialists fault Republicans for even mentioning the public statements of the wife of the Democratic nominee. And now, we’ve got a major daily assigning reporters to investigate the private life of the Republican nominee, even approaching her daughters’ friends.
Where’s the outrage? Where are all the liberal bloggers once aghast at Republicans for making an issue of Michelle Obama? Too busy snooping around the family of Sarah Palin?
Please find below the jump the full text of the letter of Cindy McCain’s lawyer to Bill Keller of the Times:
Dear Mr. Keller:
I represent Cindy McCain. I write to appeal to your sense of fairness, balance and decency in deciding whether to publish another story about her. I do this well knowing your obvious bias for Barack Obama and your obvious bias hostility to John McCain. I ask you to put your biases and agendas aside.
I understand that Cindy is in the public eye, but you have already profiled her extensively (Jennifer Steinhauer reported), written about her financial situation (including an editorial on her tax returns) and about her role at Hensley and Company.
I am advised that you assigned two of your top investigative reporters who have spent an extensive amount of time in Arizona and around the country investigating Cindy’s life including her charity, her addiction and her marriage to Senator McCain. None of these subjects are news.
I am also advised that your reporters are speaking to Tom Gosinski and her cousin Jamie Clark, neither of whom are reliable or credible sources. Mr. Gosinski has been publicly exposed as a liar and blackmailer on the subject of Cindy McCain. Jamie Clark has very serious drug and stability issues and has failed in a number of attempts to blackmail Cindy. She is simply not credible.
In 1994, Mr. Gosinski drafted a civil complaint for damages claiming, among other things, that Cindy had defamed him with prospective employers after he was discharged from AVMT. Those allegations were utterly false. He was unable to produce any prospective employers and Cindy had not discussed his deficiencies as an employee with anyone outside of AVMT. Indeed, his termination was demonstrated to be appropriate and when he was let go, Cindy gave him severance pay. When confronted with this evidence, his lawyer resigned. Gosinski never filed the complaint in Court and could produce no evidence to support any of its allegations. He attempted to have Cindy pay him $250,000 in exchange for not filing the complaint. Cindy refused and made his attempt to extort her public.
Thereafter, he amended his complaint to allege that Cindy asked him to commit perjury in the adoption proceed involving Bridget McCain. The notes of Cindy’s counsel and the official transcript of the adoption proceedings clearly demonstrate that Gosinski’s was never asked to lie and did not falsely testify in the proceeding. His allegation was an utter fabrication. Gosinski further alleged that Cindy used his name to obtain pain killers for her own personal use. The records of AVMT show that Dr. Max Johnson, licensed by the DEA to order drugs, directed the use of employee names on the prescriptions. The drugs obtained using Mr. Gosinski’s name were used and donated on an AVMT trip to El Salvador. They were not used by Cindy.
These allegations and efforts to hurt Cindy have been a matter of public record for sixteen years. Cindy has been quite open and frank about her issues for all these years. Any further attempts to harass and injure her based on the information from Gosinski and Clark will be met with an appropriate response. While she may be in the public eye, she is not public property nor the property of the press to abuse and defame.
It is worth noting that you have not employed your investigative assets looking into Michelle Obama. You have not tried to find Barack Obama’s drug dealer that he wrote about in his book, Dreams of My Father. Nor have you interviewed his poor relatives in Kenya and determined why Barack Obama has not rescued them. Thus, there is a terrific lack of balance here.
I suggest to you that none of these subjects on either side are worthy of the energy and resources of The New York Times. They are cruel hit pieces designed to injure people that only the worst rag would investigate and publish. I know you and your colleagues are always preaching about raising the level of civil discourse in our political campaigns. I think taking some your own medicine is in order here.
I ask you to let Cindy McCain carry on in her usual understated, selfless and dignified way. The fabrications and lies of blackmailers are not fit to print in any newspaper but particularly not in The New York Times.
Sincerely,
John M. Dowd
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP
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When is someone going to interview Obama’s drug dealer.
“The NY Times is no longer a credible newspaper. It’s a building that environmentalist daredevils climb.” ~Dennis Miller.
I don’t think the media cares anymore. They realize at this piont, especially after the past few years, that no one thinks they are unbiased.
At this juncture it appears from observation that they aren’t reporting the news so much as just editorializing it and calling it news.
It would be good to have people start using language that keeps repeating the mantra of any liberal media outlet as no longer news, but editorial.
“The editorial paper, New York Times…”
“The editorial channel, msnbc…”
When attempts to correct are made, simply say, “no, I intended to say editorial because they engage in opinion instead of facts, there’s a huge difference and it must be pointed out that journalism was and still is a respected profession, however, these outlets are not in journalism they are into editorializing and it needs to be met head on”.
I have come to believe that the best inoculation against having the bad stuff covered about you is to have a D after your name.
It appears that advantage now goes to attacks by the press on your or your family. If you have a D, you are safe, if you have the R then look out.
What is so bad about the facebook issue is that it lays a lie to the claim that children are off limits.
You’ve got to understand, people in NY are much smarter than you or me – I know because I am a native. But I got out. I’m always, always shocked by folks all over the country who subscribe to the NYT, especially the Sunday edition. As if it has anything to do with them. Why read it when you are not actually there? And they set their homepages on their computers to nytimes.com. As a consequence, these are people who are very uninformed – but they feel good about themselves!
I honestly don’t know how Democrats can sleep at night, unless they have no consciences whatsoever.
We no longer sell the NY Times in our store.
The only way to get rid of MoDo and her self-loathing sisters is to either throw a bucket of water over them and watch them melt, or drop a house on them.
Regards,
Peter H.
This election process has been the most outrageous ever witnessed in modern times. From misleading headlines to literally endorsing a biased view for one canddate to actual character assassination of anyone associated with the opposition candidate, the media has once and for all buried the expectation of observers to supply news, fairly and objectively. A pox on all their houses.
And here’s the the latest Barack Obama ad that’s giving Democrats and Obama voters a stiffy (go to 1:20 into it).
Will the media be able to shied Obama’s ineptitude when things implode while he’s in the Oval Office?
I know a girl who has the NYT as her home page. She lives on a farm in northern Alberta. The NYT makes her feel better about her cultural sophistication.
She is a close relation to me, and I can’t be angry. It is pathetic, though.
Having such articles in the NYT will do two things. Confirm to the elites that they are right – moral and just.
Also, it paints anyone with an R as an evil horrible person.
So when in conversation with such people – you say something positive about Sarah Palin, or Cindy McCain, they will look at you with disdain – you are such a hick, I know the truth, I read it in the paper of record the NYT!
I am an informed person – you are simply a boob.
Whoa, did Dowd write this in April then leave it on her desk for a really long time?
McCain is racist.
Right Turn, your comment makes me smile. Earlier today, I scribbled a note for post–if Obama wins and does poorly, medis credibility will be in tatters.
If NYT is so evil, why read it? Do you really think that the most of the people in this country of any political leanings are actually influenced by what is said in that paper? At one time perhaps, but not now. If they are so biased, then they will continue to lose readership. I don’t understand the amount of time that is spent here on things like this. What you are for is far more interesting that what you are against. It’s been claimed here that Dems run against while Repubs run for. I don’t see proof of that on here.
I read that blogs are going to change things, bring honesty and openess but all I see are a bunch of people on both sides that need their diapers changed. Whines and clichés about the “other side†or impotent chest beating and arrogant brags. The only ones who truly stand up for what they believe and are honest about their intentions are the extremes.
The funny thing, or maybe it’s terribly sad, but for every post on here that is about the biased media and viciousness of the left and all the negative things about anyone remotely liberal, I get emails or feeds from left wing groups saying pretty much the same word for word, just change the party and names. And everyone thinks they are totally correct and the other side is going to destroy the country, and blah blah blah.
What a waste of time and energy. Meanwhile, (all) the candidates just fill the air with sound bites and catchy phrases never saying anything of value that explains what they have to offer. Flush Joe the plumber, BS politics to the extreme, neither side gives a crap about the common citizen of the USA. Flush, yes we can or whatever garbage mantra from the Obama camp. And the saddest thing is that that crap works, no wonder the country is such a mess.
lol @ mitchell
Abu Ghraib, “torture”, “illegal wiretaps” etc.
I read the WSJ and have it as my homepage and I’ve never been to Wall Street. Just messin’ with ya.
Actually, I have a copy of The Wall Street Journal Guide to the Business of Life (I recommend everybody have a copy). Your comment got me wondering what other paper does more to help people enhance their lives?
Can’t help but notice you used the qualifier in this country. Otherwise, one would have to include al-Qaida, Hamas, Hizbollah etc.
Yes, because they have control over what is published, how it is published, etc. People base their opinions off what they know. They only know what is published.
But I don’t.
I imagine that others’ reason for reading it would be simply to find out what official talking points of the Democratic Party are being spread about, today.
Oh, not many. It’s just that the entire *establishment* (as opposed to alternative non-traditional) media of the nation co-ordinates with them, re-publishes their stories, takes their cues from them, etc.
Gay conservative isn’t that an oxy moron???