If Lawyers Wrote The New York Times. . .

But none of this settles the question of whether he did indeed engage in behavior sufficiently inappropriate to make his aides nervous.
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The setllement doesn't prevent me from concluding that the sentences that actually made print (rather than the wider suspicions they implied) were, in fact, true.
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I know that it violates the rules of the club, but many of us are of the opinion that the club is a little too clubby in the first place.

Also, If you want cryptic gobbledygook, then read Joe's Zadie Smith link. Lawyerspeak, on the other hand is usually notoriously precise.

"some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself." but we're not supposed to read that as an inappropriate relationship?

Heck hath no fury like a Scherer scorned. It's cute watching you defend McCain's honor.

...none of this settles the question of whether he did indeed engage in behavior sufficiently inappropriate to make his aides nervous.
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Come on, Dirks. You don't really care about McCain's "behavior" or his aides' nerves, and neither do I.
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This isn't a question of the Villagers protecting their beloved, it's a question of whether this is the (intended) effect of Politico on their hapless, inbred, aristocratic competitors.
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From Politico's Vile Manifesto (WARNING--PDF):

"This is a Darwinian business. People are not looking for MORE to read."
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"QUESTIONS TO ASK EACH MORNING:...C) What is a medium-term project that I or my reporters can work on TODAY that will drive conversation on my beat and FORCE our competitors to follow it?
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"...POLITICO journalism can be as central to the Washington conversation as the 'Big Three'..used to be."

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In their own words, Politico's goals are to "FORCE" the Times to run sh*t like this "story" about McCain --to "FORCE" the Times to be more like Drudge, to "FORCE" the Times to fail any civic responsibility they've had pretensions of offering us carnival mark, public readers --and try to succeed by titillating the gossip whores that make up the Beltway press corps (their true audience).
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Nobody cares about McCain's aides' concerns, Dirks, except people like Tweety and his producers, i.e. people who could care less about you, me and our country.

Shorter Scherer: 'Put aside the NY Post's Obama/dead-monkey cartoon which thousands were deeply offended by -- I want to hop on the tire swing and talk about that time months ago when John McCain was wronged by the NY Times.'

MS, good post.
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The NY Times holier-than-thou attitude towards Politico is difficult to handle considering their tabloid style coverage of the election. I know the Iseman story has (rightfully) attracted a lot of criticism, but I still think their lowest point was when they hunted down McCain's son's high school teachers and proudly reported his favorite movies. And have they discovered any vitally important information yet from that reporter they assigned to cover Edwards' extramarital history?
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The Times is still a good paper in other areas - science in particular - but in their political reporting they're generally a slower and less concise version of Politico.

The appropriatness or lack thereof of the NYT story hinges on a single question that has a factual and unrefutable yes/no answer. Did McCain and Iseman ever sleep together? If not, then the story implying that they did was clearly irresponsible. If so, then we can be spared the fainting couch.
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The fact that all the 'debate' about the story fails to address the question suggests that there is indeed a significant amout of stuff that 'everyone knows' but 'no one can say' that goes on in DC and everybody's opinion on the subject seems to be colored by everything but a simple regard for ascertainable truth.
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Based on what we know about McCain's relationship with his first wife and how much the campaign recvolved around issues of character, I'd say that the NYT's investigation of the issue was fair game. That they went ahead and published what they had when they came up short, does indeed cross a line but I'm certainly not going to lose much sleep over it.

the original was a hit piece pure and simple, based on what two "associates" who "had become disillusioned with the senator" told the Times. While it may be true that there were concerns within the campaign of the appearance of inappropriate conduct, the story is written in a way that the reader will assume that there was an inappropriate relationship -- an assumption that cannot be supported by the actual facts presented.
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One feels sorry for Iseman if she did nothing wrong (and there is no evidence of wrongdoing) because the article is libellous toward her -- yet going after the Times for their libel would mean that the Times could use the courts to dig into every aspect of her personal and professional life.
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The Times utilized the journalistic standards of the National Enquirer in this piece, and those who are critical of Scherer for doing this post would/will be howling like mad dogs if/when Obama is afforded the same treatment.

"Did McCain and Iseman ever sleep together? If not, then the story implying that they did was clearly irresponsible. If so, then we can be spared the fainting couch."
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Paul Dirks,
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Same point might be made concerning the accuracy of the Bush national guard service story. Much ado over the documentation, if I recall. Accuracy of the story was swept aside, even though some of the principles confirmed it.

The Times utilized the journalistic standards of the National Enquirer in this piece...
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No, they used the standards of Drudge/Politico:
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February 19, 2009
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Categories: Democrats
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Hey, you, get off of Hillary's cloud
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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton likes the Stones.
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The Times, reporting on her Far East trip, passes along this gem -- and yes, we'd welcome anyone who can find a YouTube on this UPDATE: Ben's got it:

Appearing on a popular Indonesian television show, Mrs. Clinton was asked to name her favorite performing artists — she said the Beatles and the Rolling Stones — but politely declined to sing.

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We decided to fact-check, remembering the ambiguities that swirled around Yankees vs. Cubs, Dubai Ports World and Bosnian snipers.

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Politico "decided to fact check" the Secretary of State's claim that she enjoyed both the Beatles and the Stones.
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The Enquirer's standards are too high a threshold of integrity for this comparison...

The appropriatness or lack thereof of the NYT story hinges on a single question that has a factual and unrefutable yes/no answer. Did McCain and Iseman ever sleep together? If not, then the story implying that they did was clearly irresponsible. If so, then we can be spared the fainting couch.
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Paul Dirks, do you really believe that?! Process matters. I don't care if Iseman slept with half the Republican caucus; if you can't prove it don't suggest it. Journalists can't just make up stuff and then act vindicated if it happens to be true. Especially when it is IMPOSSIBLE to completely disprove their insinuations. Iseman can do nothing to prove that she never had a relationship with McCain; this is like the VF slander of Gina Gershon. They make their insinuations with no real evidence to back them up, and then people can choose to hold on to their (groundless) suspicions because Iseman and Gershon can't prove they didn't do something.
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It's disgusting.

Michael, because of you, I will never be able to retire my moniker.

Same point might be made concerning the accuracy of the Bush national guard service story. Much ado over the documentation, if I recall.
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Unlike the accusation against McCain, it was up to Bush to prove that he had indeed...done his duty. He didn't.

I am going to say this and I don't really care if I get flamed for it.
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If the elements of the story weren't true, Iseman wouldn't have settled for the correction. Whether she slept with him or not evidently there was an IMPRESSION by the people the Times spoke with and alluded to that they did have a romantic relationship. Now if that isn't true, why did she settle the case? It would be pretty easy to prove that the Times lied for instance about getting an email from John Weaver saying that he arranged the meeting with Iseman after consulting with campaign leadership. Either the email exists and was sent from Weaver or it doesn't and or wasn't. Yeah maybe I am cynical but where I am from where there is smoke there is fire even if its just a little one. That the Times didn't have independent corraboration (which they never contended) that they slept together doesn't change that. It is what it is.

Glass houses, Scherer. Glass houses.

Whether she slept with him or not evidently there was an IMPRESSION by the people the Times spoke with and alluded to that they did have a romantic relationship.
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That's not enough for a court case. The original article was written to avoid being legally libelous. Iseman does not have any promosing legal options.
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It would be pretty easy to prove that the Times lied for instance about getting an email from John Weaver saying that he arranged the meeting with Iseman after consulting with campaign leadership. Either the email exists and was sent from Weaver or it doesn't and or wasn't.
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The issue is that the email doesn't prove a sexual relationship, or even that Weaver suspected a sexual relationship. Weaver has maintained that is not what he was suggesting: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/21/mccain/
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The Times has never found anyone willing to go on record as even suspecting let alone being aware of an affair between McCain and Iseman. It's unfortunate because the Times had enough material to write a legitimate story about lobbyist influence with McCain, but that's not what they wrote. They wanted a tabloid story.

"Unlike the accusation against McCain, it was up to Bush to prove that he had indeed...done his duty. He didn't."
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But some of the same rhetorical mis-direction as here . . .

Sorry, not clear enough . . . I'm referring to the responses in the legal complaint, NOT the comments here.

I have to sign off now, but I have a question: Say you're Vicki Iseman and you've never slept with John McCain. You don't have any real legal options and you're up against the most powerful paper in the world. What would you do?
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If that one is not challenging enough, what if they did in fact have a flirtatious relationship and nothing else? We all know people like that, and I think it's safe to assume that blond female lobbyists are perhaps more likely to have a flirtatious manner in their daily life. So it is quite possible that McCain aides actually were worried about a relationship or the appearance of a relationship, but in reality nothing was going on. What do you do in that case?

rose83
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Here is my problem with the denial, Iseman said that even Weaver's version wasn't what really happened.
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"Ms. Iseman's involvement in the campaign, it was felt by us, could undermine that effort," Weaver told the Times.
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In a Thursday interview with CNN, Weaver said he approached Iseman because she was telling people she had special access to and influence with McCain.
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The New York Times story does not claim Weaver and Iseman discussed any romantic relationship, and Weaver told CNN they never talked about it because "there was no reason to."
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"My concern wasn't about anything John had done; it was about her comments. It was about access she claimed to have had," Weaver told CNN.
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Weaver left the McCain camp in summer 2007, but he said he still talks to the senator's campaign officials daily.
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Iseman acknowledged the Union Station meeting but disputed Weaver's account, according to The New York Times.
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"I never discussed with him alleged things I had 'told people,' that had made their way 'back to' him," Iseman told the newspaper in an e-mail. She added that she never received special treatment from McCain's office, according to the paper.

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Now something was going on here plain and simple. There wouldn't have been a reason for Weaver to have the meeting otherwise. If he was worried that she was SAYING she had special access why would he be if there wasn't enough contact to make her claim credible? And if she DID have special access, how did she gain it? Hey like I said, to each their own. If you want to believe that nothing happened but she dropped the suit thats fine. I just don't believe it at all.
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BTW in reference to your last question, if you read the article all the NYTimes reported was the "suspicions". So if she was doing enough for people to actually believe something else was going on then thats not really the NYT's fault is it?

If you want to believe that nothing happened but she dropped the suit thats fine.
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I don't know or particularly care what happened (I believe what I wrote in my first post), but dropping the suit doesn't suggest anything. She doesn't have a case, because as you point out all the NYTimes reported was the "suspicions".. The problem is that you and everyone else here are not talking about whether people had suspicions; we're all talking about whether or not anything actually happened. Which was inevitable.
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The bottom line is that the NY Times was irresponsible to print the article.
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. If he was worried that she was SAYING she had special access why would he be if there wasn't enough contact to make her claim credible?
As we've all seen, the burden of proof for these allegations is disturbingly low, which I'm sure John Weaver is aware of. Plus, he may have genuinely suspected an affair that was not real. Or - and this is what Weaver seems to be saying on the record - perhaps he was worried by claims of special access that had nothing to do with a sexual relationship; there are multiple ways to obtain special access.
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I absolutely think the NY Times had enough proof of a relationship with a lobbyist that shaped McCain's political actions. Where they erred was in making unsupported insinuations about the nature of that relationship.
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As for the discrepancy between Iseman's and Weaver's accounts, that doesn't seem related to any kind of sexual relationship. She's a professional lobbyist. She has to fight any allegations that she is going around talking about special access to powerful Senators. It's an interesting discrepancy and I'd like to find out more about what happened at the meeting, but there's no real indication that the discrepancy has anything to do with the tabloid question of "Did McIseman hook up?"

rose83
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They had SOURCES. Thats what journalists do, they use SOURCES. Just because they haven't come forward on the record doesn't mean they don't exist. Remember they said
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Both said Mr. McCain acknowledged behaving inappropriately and pledged to keep his distance from Ms. Iseman. The two associates, who said they had become disillusioned with the senator, spoke independently of each other and provided details that were corroborated by others.

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Now maybe the sources were making it all up, maybe they weren't but the truth is neither you nor I know whether they did or didn't so you can't say the NYT was irresponsible. They looked for corroboration and got it before running the story.

If Ms. Iseman went to trial, she presumbably would have been required to produce her billing records and her trip expenses, which could have been cross matched. The billing records could be correlated (or not) to McCain's voting records. Rather than go to trial, or even wage a fight in 'the court of public opinion', she completely disappeared. Contrast her behavior to say, Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame.
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She may be completely innocent. John McCain may be as well. But McCain made service and character into campaign issues and the Republicans dubbed themselves the party of family values. Personally I don't have a problem with that, but it becomes news if they don't live up to their self-proclaimed ideals.

The NYT hardly needs to hire a lawyer to write gobbledygook. Why spend 300 bucks an hour, when for the same sum you can get Scherer for a whole week, complete with all the rich, creamy gobbledygookiness your readers can swallow?