The New York Times has taken a lot of guff for its Feb. 21 story about Senator John McCain and a female lobbyist, Vicki Iseman; even the paper's public editor, Clark Hoyt, chided it: "…if a paper is going to suggest an improper sexual affair…it owes readers more proof than The Times was able to provide."
Meanwhile, little or no criticism has been directed at Senator McCain for his part in the Times account.
Instead of meeting with Times reporters working on the story, McCain stiffed them. As the Times reported, "The senator declined repeated interview requests, beginning in December." Had he met with reporters, and denied key parts of the story as vociferously as he has since the story ran, he conceivably could have given Times editors second thoughts about it.
The story quoted a McCain aide, John Weaver, as saying that at one point he met with Iseman to warn her "to stay away from the senator." The Times wrote that "two former associates said they joined in a series of confrontations with Mr. McCain, warning him that he was risking his campaign and career."
McCain disputes that any such confrontations took place "It certainly didn't happen to me….I don't know anything about it."
The Times followed its Feb.21 story with a published broadside from McCain, who attacked the paper for a "hit -and-run smear campaign" and "gutter politics."
Much more effective than insults would have been timely denials and rebuttals to the statements delivered to the Times by McCain associates. The denials and rebuttals would have deserved to be high up in the story. If McCain's post-story statements are truthful, it would have been in his interests – and in the interests of readers – to make them to the reporters who worked on the story. For all of the ink spilled on the Times story, it remains a mystery why McCain ducked reasonable requests for a chance to tell his side of a newsworthy story.
By all means, subject the Times story to scrutiny. But let's not give McCain a pass. As a former Senate committee chairman and now a candidate for president, he has an obligation to respond to questions about his record. The parallel obligation of journalists is to ask tough questions of those who seek office and not allow themselves to be bullied.
