Just a little background on myself, here, before I stomp the Gray Lady. My parents are union and so were theirs. I am left-wing born and true blue. I was raised on the Weavers and Woody Guthrie. My religious education was Bertrand Russell. I got teargassed at the Pentagon, drank champagne the night Nixon resigned. I am a registered Democrat. I profoundly despise Reaganism, and I voted for Jimmy Carter twice and Walter Mondale once.
And I think the McCain article in the New York Times is a shameful crock of shit.
Here is what the article implies: While chairing the Senate Commerce Committee, John McCain was fucking Vicki Iseman, a woman who was not only not his wife but who was telecommunications-industry lobbyist. Ms. Iseman is succinctly described by The Rude Pundit as "eminently fuckable." (The latter opinion is a matter of taste, I suppose.) Here is the evidence according to the Times:
[A]ccording to two former McCain associates, some of the senator’s advisers had grown so concerned that the relationship had become romantic that they took steps to intervene.
Now, pardon me, folks, but as evidence of extracurricular fucking, that's hardly Strom Thurmond's daughter.
It's not even a photo of an alarming glance.
It's a couple of unnamed people who say they were concerned because "she always seemed to be around."
Concerned because she always seemed to be around?
If that is evidence of adultery, then you had better get rid of your cat.
*
Yeah, yeah, it's not the sex, it's the impropriety of the appearance since he was on the Commerce Committee and she lobbied for telecommunications and it's REALLY about his narrative history of coming up from Keating scandal and yadda yadda zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
My fellow lefties: That is a steaming crock of shit.
Maybe a few of you remember back ten years, when Ken Starr and the great wingnut tsunami was bearing down on the Clinton White House.
Maybe you remember what the GOP said--that goodness, it wasn't the SEX for heaven's sake, it was the lies, the terrible lies, the perjury, the principle that was part of the body of God and the very ducks that migrated with the seasons.
Senator Dale Bumpers, called out of retirement, took the Senate floor.
H.L. Mencken said one time, "When you hear somebody say, 'This is not about money,' it's about money."
(LAUGHTER)
And when you hear somebody say, "This is not about sex," it's about sex.
Well, Bumpurs was right. And he'd be right again today, if he spoke up. Because the Times article on McCain isn't about lobbying. It's about sex. It says "John McCain is a disgusting randy lecherous adulterous old goat."
Without any evidence at all.
Sorry, but that stinks. It's wrong. It's already united all of McCain's GOP enemies on the far right. It has united the GOP behind him as has nothing else. They are outraged. And you want to know something?
I mean, speaking as someone who is so left wing he would be pleased to see George W. Bush spend the rest of his life in prison for war crimes? Who is delighted to hear that nobody who actually lives in Washington calls it "Reagan Airport"?
Even a broken clock is right twice a day. And this time, just once, the wingnuts happen to be correct: The Times is full of sanctimonious shit. The staff of the Times have embarrassed themselves. They have embarrassed us. They have in the short and long run done us harm, and helped the opposition. And they have done so by grinding--very loudly--an ideological axe.
Mr. McCain: Speaking for myself, I apologize. I am no part of this. You deserve to lose this election on the merits--that is, because your Republican ideas are tired and old and destructive. You deserve a long and healthy career as a minority voice in a minority party.
But you surer than hell do not deserve this.
This stinks.