08:00 pm
The Only Paper of Record?
So Drudge is reporting that The New York Times rejected a McCain op-ed on Iraq after printing one by Obama. I’ll leave the analysis of the relative wisdom of the Times’s decision to others, but one thing did occur to me.
As recently as 2002, there were 1,457 daily newspapers in these United States, including at least one or two whose editorial pages have a favorable opinion of John McCain. In addition there are hundreds of thousands of blogs and news sites.
Had McCain submitted his op-ed on Iraq to any of them, it would have been news — especially if he had done it as Obama was getting on a plane to Afghanistan and Iraq. And you can assume that the blog and cable echo chambers would have kept it in the news for days, much as they did for Obama’s piece.
Yes, the Times is the “paper of record.” And yes, they printed Obama’s piece. And yes, the right has a long history of picking on the Times for being a lefty mouthpiece, so leaking this certainly doesn’t hurt McCain with his base.
But it can’t help with the pundit class, who, after all, still have a lot of influence on coverage. Was it really worth not publishing it elsewhere? Doesn’t this make McCain look like a wimp and loser, especially given the fact that his Iraq policy is not looking the best right now?