As odd as this sounds, the NYT may have done McCain a favor with the way they framed this story. Because they put the allegations of marital infidelity up top, most people are going to ignore the ethical improprieties that are the real heart of the story.
I'm going to ignore the first part and focus on the second, particularly this sentence:
Even as he has vowed to hold himself to the highest ethical standards, his confidence in his own integrity has sometimes seemed to blind him to potentially embarrassing conflicts of interest.
This almost perfectly captures a broader tendency I was trying to describe in this post:
McCain's strength on national security is myth. He thinks that because he is a war hero he has a built in expertise that need not change and adapt with the times. He is wrong. Soon enough, that will be obvious to everyone, even McCain.
To my mind, this is the single biggest character flaw possessed by Sen. McCain. He so thoroughly believes his own hype that he often feels no need to engage in any meaningful self-examination. He has promised to hold himself to the highest ethical standards, so by definition whatever he does must be ethical. He "knows" the military, so whatever he believes is "right," and whatever others believe is "wrong."Keep this trend in mind as you read through the entire piece. Here, as just one example, is a story from the fight to pass campaign finance reforms:
By 2002, he had succeeded in passing the McCain-Feingold Act, which transformed American politics by banning "soft money," the unlimited donations from corporations, unions and the rich that were funneled through the two political parties to get around previous laws.
One of his efforts, though, seemed self-contradictory. In 2001, he helped found the nonprofit Reform Institute to promote his cause and, in the process, his career. It collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in unlimited donations from companies that lobbied the Senate commerce committee. Mr. McCain initially said he saw no problems with the financing, but he severed his ties to the institute in 2005, complaining of "bad publicity" after news reports of the arrangement.Like other presidential candidates, he has relied on lobbyists to run his campaigns. Since a cash crunch last summer, several of them -- including his campaign manager, Rick Davis, who represented companies before Mr. McCain's Senate panel -- have been working without pay, a gift that could be worth tens of thousands of dollars.
In recent weeks, Mr. McCain has hired another lobbyist, Mark Buse, to run his Senate office. In his case, it was a round trip through the revolving door: Mr. Buse had directed Mr. McCain's committee staff for seven years before leaving in 2001 to lobby for telecommunications companies.
Mr. McCain's friends dismiss questions about his ties to lobbyists, arguing that he has too much integrity to let such personal connections influence him.
"Unless he gives you special treatment or takes legislative action against his own views, I don't think his personal and social relationships matter," said Charles Black, a friend and campaign adviser who has previously lobbied the senator for aviation, broadcasting and tobacco concerns.
It's a perfect example of just how hollow McCain's commitment to reform really is. Of course personal relationships matter. What money buys is access, not votes. With enough access, anything is possible. And yet he pretends that he doesn't know this.
Look, a story like this might not be a problem for other people, but for a straight talking, earmark battling, finance reforming maverick like McCain, it should be. He built a narrative that he chooses not to even attempt to live up to. That should matter. Will it? We'll see.
UPDATE: Salon has an important reminder here. The NYT was originally planning to run this story back in December, but for reasons that aren't yet clear decided to hold back.
UPDATE II: Washington Post has its own version of the story up, and TNR is promising a follow-on in the morning as well. The post story include several on the record quotes and descriptions, including a key section backed by John Weaver, a man who until recently was one of McCain's closest advisors.
Also, after reading both stories again, I have to echo what TNR's Noam Scheiber says here: both stories feel like they were very heavily edited by a team of lawyers. It's as if you can't see the smoke yet, but you can smell it. How big is the fire? It's hard to say.
Also, Marc Ambinder's comments here are spot on:
...the interest will be intense because the story was so heavily anticipated. And the wink-wink-nod-nod assertion that McCain allegedly acknowledged unspecified "improprieties" to some aides is bound to be the part of this that kicks for a while.
McCain's people are pushing back on this story hard, and according to some reports are demanding the names of the off the record sources so that they can directly rebut their stories. That tactic is either quite smart or perilously foolish, depending on the underlying truth. Either way, it is a high stakes response that is likely to keep this story in the news for quite some time.
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