Huh. Politico reports:
John McCain’s press shop and legal teams spent a lot of time answering
questions about –- and preparing to rebut –- exposes that never ran,
according to the campaign’s top lawyer, Trevor Potter.
“I could walk into our communications director’s office on any one day and there would be six or seven truly horrific stories sort of bubbling away on the stove,” Potter said Thursday morning during a panel discussion hosted by the University of California Washington Center.
“This journalistic entity was doing an expose on Cindy McCain. This journalistic entity was doing an expose on John McCain’s military record in Florida in the 1960s. On they went,” Potter continued. “Most of them probably never turned into anything,” he said, but they still took a lot of time to vet.
“That meant they were a problem for the legal office,” he said, partly because the lawyers had to pick up some of the slack when financial pressures forced McCain to pare down his press staff last summer, but also because the inquiries required some serious due diligence. (Politico)
“I could walk into our communications director’s office on any one day and there would be six or seven truly horrific stories sort of bubbling away on the stove,” Potter said Thursday morning during a panel discussion hosted by the University of California Washington Center.
“This journalistic entity was doing an expose on Cindy McCain. This journalistic entity was doing an expose on John McCain’s military record in Florida in the 1960s. On they went,” Potter continued. “Most of them probably never turned into anything,” he said, but they still took a lot of time to vet.
“That meant they were a problem for the legal office,” he said, partly because the lawyers had to pick up some of the slack when financial pressures forced McCain to pare down his press staff last summer, but also because the inquiries required some serious due diligence. (Politico)
We aren't aren't sure we understand what that means---whether it means they couldn't dig up enough dirt or they couldn't dig up enough proof or---as Phoenix Woman suggests---the media was reluctant to publish unfavorable stories about McCain. Or maybe some of all three? Who knows?
The real significance of this information is that it would seem to refute Mark Halperin's charge that the press was coddling Barack Obama. Jed L at Kos says:
After all, John McCain was a twice-married septuagenarian who admitted
to repeatedly cheating on his first wife and in fact filed for a
marriage license with Cindy before his divorce from his first wife was complete. More importantly, McCain had served
in Congress for nearly three decades. There were a lot of questions
worth asking.
And there was actually quite a lot of information out there that got very little play in the mainstream press. We knew about it. You knew about it. But people who don't go on the internets or read liberal blogs didn't have an inkling.
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