Where's the Outrage?

Okay, wait. I need to stop laughing. I need to compose myself. Armstrong Williams is the guy who was found to have pocketed over $240,000 from the Department of Education. He was the one who pushed No Child Left Behind on his talk show and never acknowledged that he was on Bush’s payroll.

So, now, he is criticizing the New York Times about their John McCain story. I’m starting to laugh again. Look if Armstrong Williams is Superman and he is not, then ethics is his kryptonite. He shouldn’t come within a mile of anyone with a microphone and a question about ethics. He simply isn’t credible. He can’t make himself credible. He can’t wave a magic wand and become credible. That ship has sailed. MSNBC should be ashamed for digging him up.

Now, about the NYT. I’m not sure why the NYT sat on this story for a couple of months but they did. First of all, the reaction to the New York Times story has been overwhelming. The New York Times has received over 2400 comments on their website. I have been following online blogs and newspapers for years. I have never seen 2400 comments to anything on any website. It is an amazing response. It is a type of response that raises a red flag. Someone sent out an e-mail and asked people to berate or chastise the New York Times. I don’t know this for a fact but that number of comments is way out of proportion to what that story should’ve gotten.

Secondly, if the story come out back in December, when Drudge said the New York Times had the story, what would have happened? John McCain would’ve been dead in the water. Let’s remember a few things — back in June – August, John McCain’s campaign was in serious trouble. They weren’t raising any money. He just fired a bunch of staff. His campaign chairman in Florida had just been arrested for doing some Larry Craig type of activity in some public restroom. If the New York Times had released an article in December John McCain would not be running for president now. Therefore, the New York Times did him a favor by holding the article until his campaign was stronger.

Let’s look at the other side of the coin, suppose the article was released after the Republican convention. What would be the reaction? I think one could easily argue that this with the spirit of the newly united Republicans. It would energize an already jazzed Democratic party. The party of “values” would again seem hypocritical. So, I would argue, that the New York Times release in the article now instead of waiting, again, helped John McCain!

Releasing the article now, helps solidify Republican support for John McCain (2400 comments came from somewhere). Nothing brings a family or party together better than some outsider picking on one of their own. The New York Times “picking on” John McCain should get those Republicans who are sitting on the fence to run to his side. Plus, this story guarantees that John McCain will be the lead story in most newspapers and most news programs for over 72 hours. During that time, we won’t hear anything from Mike Huckabee. Now, the big old mean right-wing talking heads like Laura Ingram, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter can run to John McCain side without seeming to be more hypocritical than they usually are. As a matter of fact, if you stand back and look at it, there couldn’t have been a better time to release the story for John McCain.

The truly ironic thing about this story is that we’ve missed the point. In my opinion, it really doesn’t matter whether John McCain slept with a lobbyist or not. Personally, I don’t care. Instead, this story again shows that John McCain is at best ethically insensitive and at worst completely ethically tone deaf. The story clearly shows that John McCain gets uncomfortably close to lobbyists. This is the same John McCain who’s been railing against lobbyists and special interests on the campaign trail. This is the meat of the story. John McCain is not ethically any better than Armstrong Williams. We don’t have to think back too far to the Keating five. John McCain was part of that. His behavior has always been questionable in this matter. Whether you like John McCain or whether you hate John McCain, everybody can agree that he was too close to lobbyists in the Keating five incident for anyone to be comfortable. That was 20 years ago. Let me repeat, that was 20 years ago. I guess the question really is, has John McCain learned anything about lobbyists in the last 20 years?

Back to the New York Times — the editors take time and answer several of the overall questions about the McCain story — here.

Armstong Williams and Ethics [ 1:44 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tags: Election 2008 // 2 Comments »