By John Aloysius Farrell
No, I’m not talking about Vicki Iseman, the communication lobbyist who befriended John McCain and, even as I write, is joining Marilyn Monroe, Gennifer Flowers and Toodles Ryan in the gallery of political gal pals.
Toodles was the instrument by which the roguish former Mayor of Boston, James Michael Curley, got revenge upon John F. Kennedy’s grandfather, the equally knavish Mayor John F. “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald.
As told by Doris Kearns Goodwin (The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys) and Jack Beatty (The Rascal King), Honey Fitz met Toodles at a roadhouse bar, held her to him on the dance floor, and very publicly showered her with kisses. Curley used the information to force Fitzgerald out of the mayor’s race in 1913, in part by announcing a speaking schedule that included such lectures as “Great Lovers in History: From Cleopatra to Toodles.”
No, the cold dish I am talking about is the helping of revenge that appears to have been served up by John Weaver, a longtime campaign strategist who was dumped by McCain last summer.
When you get right down to it, there is precious little evidence in The New York Times page one story, and The Washington Post chaser this morning, to confirm the headline: “McCain’s Ties To Lobbyist Worried Aides.” With one huge exception – the statement by Weaver that he confronted Iseman and told her to stay away from the senator – the stories are based on accounts from unnamed “former staffers.”
Weaver – who has surely been around long enough to know – gave the Times and Post editors the essential on-the-record confirmation: the key hook they needed to put the story in print. Take it from someone who has been in on these decisions: no Weaver, no story.
“This whole story is based on anonymous sources,” McCain noted in his calm, soothing press conference this morning, during which, his wife at his side, he denied any romantic fling.
Both newspapers assured their readers that this was a question of a lobbyist’s influence, not marital infidelity.
We’ll see if the Internet and cable gobs go along with that. Somehow, the now-everywhere photograph of Iseman in her satiny gown does not evoke questions of communications law. Debates about FCC regulations don’t fuel the ratings wars of 24-hour news and talk channels.
This could be a quick blip, unless Weaver or the Times have more cards than they are showing. (We’ll know if Mitt Romney announces that he’s re-entering the race.)
But it comes at a bad moment for McCain, who was opening up some promising lines of attack on Barack Obama, and just as conservative commentators were using some queer remarks by Mrs. Obama to bolster their portrait of the Illinois senator as a strange, kind-of-foreign guy.
McCain acknowledged that, at a minimum, the flap is “a distraction.”
“It keeps me from talking about the big issues, and the not-so-big issues,” he said.
On the other hand, if McCain handles this well, it could rebound to his benefit. For conservatives, it is evidence that he is not the liberal media darling. (The enemy of my enemy is my friend.) And many other Americans, tired of the “gotcha” mentality, will watch to see if McCain can tough this out.
Toughness is a quality that both McCain and his eventual foe will have to display in the next eight months.
“American politics is a blood sport,” Beatty wrote. “Campaigns are in vital part a test of ruthlessness.”
2 Comments
February 21, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Jack:
Conservatives are theorizing that the NYT sat on the story while they endorsed McCain so that they could spring it upon him when he was the nominee.
You have — as you said — been in on top decisions at newspapers about what runs and when. How often was the editorial board briefed on stories that were in the works?
In other words, does the conspiracy theory hold water or just demonstrate an ignorance of how newspapers work?
Robert
February 21, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Hi.
Well, first off, a real conspiracy theorist might suggest that John Weaver is still secretly in the employ of his old pal John McCain, and that the McCain camp has orchestrated the whole thing to get by its previous problem-of-the-moment: the cold shoulder the senator was getting from the conservative fringe.
(After all, what better way to unite McCain with the Limbaughs of the world than by forging a common enemy? And, while we are at it, what better way to reassure voters about the senator’s advanced age and vigor than to float the notion of a sexy young mistress?)
Conspiracy theories are not solely the province of the right wing. I have had several discussions with level-headed Democrats over which candidate – Obama or Clinton – the Republicans would rather run against. They go like this:When the Republicans say Hillary, does that mean they would actually rather run against Obama, and are saying Hillary just so the Democrats nominate Obama, whom the GOP actually thinks would be easier to beat?
And then there is the transcript of the conversation between Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby, released by Dallas officials, which no doubt proves…
But I digress. Actually, the ability of newspaper people to run a good conspiracy is right up there with their ability to stave off technological obsolescence. As in, nil.
Almost all of journalism, and much of life, operates by what I call the “loose battery cable” rule.
If your car won’t start it’s probably something elemental like you ran out of gas, or have a loose battery cable. Human beings are far, far more likely to commit stupid mistakes, than run secret, complex conspiracies.
Journalists, like other human beings, are motivated, Freud said (and Ward Just re-said) by “honour, power, riches, fame and the love of women” (or men).
Confronted with what was clearly an explosive allegation, a newspaper editor would think very hard about the story, order up a team of reporters, send them out to ask every possible source for the confirmation that would make everyone in the newsroom feel better, demand rewrites and maybe – as in this case – surround the potentially salacious facts with a cumbersome structure of distantly-related material to justify the piece and make it appear more high-minded. In the process, reporters would clash with editors, the First Amendment and the “people’s right to know” would be cited by all sides, and – journalists being, by avocation, kind of nosy folks – word of what’s going on would spread throughout the newsroom or, as in this case, most of the political and journalistic world.
Finally, when every last rewrite was completed, and a regiment of potential sources interviewed, and nobody could think of anything else to do but run the damn thing, it would go into the paper.
Particularly if folks worried that they’d be scooped.
Ego, yes. Greed, yes. Competitive zeal, absolutely. Conspiracy, no.
Wake up people.
The media loves John McCain.
Almost as much as it loves Obama.