McCain may have won the first battle of spin

From The Politico:

Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign claimed vindication Thursday night after a sophisticated 24-hour counterattack turned a potentially lethal story in The New York Times into a conservative call to arms.

The piece about McCain’s friendly relations with a telecommunications lobbyist—long-discussed in political circles and planned for weeks by McCain operatives—was the first test of his ability to confront a public-relations crisis since becoming the GOP’s presumptive nominee.

But the reaction may have said as much about the mindset of the conservative movement on the brink of the general election as it did about McCain and his team.

“Even if they want to quibble within our own tribe, they’ll circle the wagons when we’re attacked by the Times,” said McCain campaign senior adviser Charlie Black.

Few commentators on the right—including some who regularly denounce ethical lapses or weaknesses of the flesh among Democrats—paused to assess seriously whether the Times’s suggestions of conflict of interest were well-founded.

Instead, many swallowed past misgivings about McCain to rally to his defense, on the apparent theory that anyone under assault by the most powerful institution in the mainstream media could not be all bad.

“For conservatives, the New York Times is shorthand for everything they distrust,” said John Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College and former Republican operative.

It was a vivid illustration of the power of the longstanding anti-media grievance among conservatives. In the past, McCain’s cozy relationships with establishment journalists (“My base,” as he sometimes jokes) has been a major reason the Arizona senator is viewed with such jaundiced eyes by many on the right. McCain was able to leverage these feelings to turn a potentially devastating story into something that arguably lifts his political standing.

There were pundits who predicted that once the MSM started attacking McCain that conservatives would rally around him. There was never much doubt that this would happen and I spent yesterday listening to as much "conservative" talk radio as I could stand (without vomiting) as the hosts lined up to go into the tank for McCain.

It doesn't matter whether the Times' story is true or not. McCain is dirty in some way, if not this way then in some other. When you see someone who can't open his mouth without pointing out how clean, pure and honorable he is you can be certain that in reality he is neither clean nor pure nor honorable. But that's not even the point.

The point isn't even that the Times published a smear based only on the word of unmanned sources. That is what the liberal media do when dealing with Republicans who get in their way. One does not become hysterical when one sees a dog move its bowels in the middle of the road and then just walk away, does one. That is, after all, what dogs do. Well this kind of thing is what the MSM does.

What is significant about this story is first that it represents the opening salvo in the MSM's campaign to destroy McCain because he is the Republican standing in the way of the Democrat who wants to be president. Second it should remind us of exactly who and what McCain is and his reaction should be a loud warning of what kind of president he will be, if elected (G-d forbid).

Remember McCain is largely a construction of the liberal media. He would not be a household word if it were not for the relentless promotion of him by the MSM. The mainstream media is left-liberal and hates conservatives and Republicans and seeks to discredit them and derail their agenda whenever possible. To this end it gave loads of face time and fawning coverage to McCain, who was expressing his fury at conservatives and Republicans for denying him the nomination in 2000 by going on TV every chance he got to trash his party and its agenda and by working in the Senate to enact a broad swath of hard-core left-wing legislation.

McCain and the left-wing media saw in each other's hatred of conservatives kindred spirits and formed a symbiotic relationship. To be crude about it McCain had his tongue so far up the MSM's ass he could lick the back of their eye balls.

Now as far as the media is concerned that relationship is over because McCain is the Republican nominee and is standing in the way of their appointed candidate (Obama, but they'll take Hillary if they have to) ascending to the presidency.

But look at the way McCain is handling the situation. While his surrogates are condemning the Times for publishing a smear and calling them everything but bald faced liars McCain personally will say nothing stronger than that he is "disappointed" with them.

Why is McCain, a man who will normally fly into a near homicidal fury if you pass him the salt when he asked for the pepper, being so mild? The answer to this should be a warning sign in letter so large that they can be read from the surface of the moon.

McCain knows that if he is elected president that he will need the liberal media. McCain knows that if he is elected president that he intends to break every promise that he has made to conservatives (with the single exception of staying in Iraq until we win) and that he will work with congressional Democrats to advance as much of their left-wing agenda as humanly possible and to do this he will need the assistance of the New York Times and the other liberal media outlets. McCain will let his mouthpieces trash the times and he will let brain dead conservative commentators like Sean Hannity run like one of Pavlov's dogs to attack the liberal media but out of his own mouth will come nothing stronger than "disappointment".

Otherwise he risks slipping into one of his profanity laced volcanic tirades, the ones which leave him looking like a cross between Capt. Queeg and Caligula, on camera.

Bottom line is that nothing of any importance has changed. It was written in stone that the MSM was going to start attacking McCain just as soon as he got the nomination nailed down. The only real question now is this, will McCain be able to stay sane enough to keep his temper under control (in public at least) as the media keeps hammering him. And the media will keep hammering him. They know his weakness and they will keep trying to exploit it.