NYT's Bumiller writes unsourced hit piece on McCain

By Soren Dayton Posted in Elisabeth Bumiller | John McCain | Media Bias | National Security | The New York Times — Comments (11) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Remember Elisabeth Bumiller? She's that New York Times reporter who tried to attack John McCain on the plane a couple of months ago. Our Dan McLaughlin characterized the interaction as "a 'gotcha' question about an old story on which there are no new facts and the reporter is just trying to pick a fight."

Well... Bumiller is at it again, doing yeoman's work for Barack Obama. This time it is an unsourced hit piece lacking in facts ... or quotes. What are we talking about?

Read on.

Let's look at some examples:

Prominent members of the pragmatist group, often called realists, say they are also wary of the McCain campaign’s chief foreign policy aide, Randy Scheunemann, who was a foreign policy adviser to former Senators Trent Lott and Bob Dole and who has longtime ties to neoconservatives.

Well... which prominent members? Are they willing to give unnamed quotes? Apparently not, because they aren't in the article. No quotes, no facts.

One of the chief concerns of the pragmatists is that Mr. McCain is susceptible to influence from the neoconservatives because he is not as fully formed on foreign policy as his campaign advisers say he is, and that while he speaks authoritatively, he operates too much off the cuff and has not done the deeper homework required of a presidential candidate.

Again... Got a quote? Any actual evidence that anyone actually believes this? Or just unsourced, unquoted statements by a reporter who is known to be hostile to John McCain?

Or:

Similarly, Mr. Scowcroft is said to have expressed reservations about Mr. McCain’s call for creating a League of Democracies as a complement to the United Nations.

Scowcroft "is said to have expressed"?? Did he express or not? If he did, quote him, like a journalist. Otherwise, Bumiller is just trading in gossip.

In fact, the only quotes in the story come from former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger. The quote that would allegedly support the lede is, emphasis added:

“It maybe too strong a term to say a fight is going on over John McCain’s soul,” said Lawrence Eagleburger, a secretary of state under the first President George Bush, who is a member of the pragmatist camp. “But if it’s not a fight, I am convinced there is at least going to be an attempt. I can’t prove it, but I’m worried that it’s taking place.”

So a whole story is based around a quote that includes "maybe its too strong", "I can't prove it", and "but I'm worried".

That's not journalism. That's just a hit piece. Bumiller and her editors should be ashamed of themselves for abandoning standards like this.

Give the New York Times a call at (202) 862-0300 or (212) 556-1234 and tell them what you think of these hatchet jobs.

It smells like Eagleburger. by Socrates

That twit is trying vainly to throw off the pall of his own irrelevance, and it speaking for Scowcroft, Powell, Armitage, et al. Or it might even be Armitage.

In any case, the idea of some kind of hidden controversy or split among Republicans over the war is ridiculous. We're all pretty much realistically idealistic at this point, 5 years into Iraq: regardless of the wisdom of breaking the country, it must be put back right, on our terms, or we lose prestige and "moral authority", the currency of the realists and the idealists, respectively.

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Gone 2500 years, still not PC.

Reply To This — User Info — #1

Yes, gideon. by Socrates

and Larry is a Nixon/Kissinger squishy who wants movement conservatism to go away.

On the other hand, he was prescient Iraq in 2002.

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Gone 2500 years, still not PC.

Reply To This — User Info — #3

What Can You Expect From a 2nd Rate Blogger? by Repair Man Jack

Oops! This was the NYW (New York Fishwrap). The mods may well ban me for insulting blogs in general.

"I believe we must adjourn this meeting to some other place." - The last recorded words of Adam Smith.

Reply To This — User Info — #6

Well done. by jmhemail

Excellent article.

Reply To This — User Info — #7

It's actually a highly revealing article by red oakster

You need to read the NY Times as you would Pravda. There is a battle for influence with McCain and the wets like Eagleburger and Armitage are losing. So they have taken to the pages of the Times, the last refuge of RINOs.

Powell's comment that he hasn't decided yet who he's going to support is indicative as well. The hawks are ascendant because McCain himself is a hawk. But the fact that John Bolton is an advisor also makes me very happy.

Reply To This — User Info — #8

the part that caught my eye by Jaded

"Randy Scheunemann, who was a foreign policy adviser to former Senators Trent Lott and Bob Dole and who has longtime ties to neoconservatives."

Sounds like my kind of guy...you go McCain...thanks Bumiller for taking McCain up a notch in my minds eye.

Freedom of Religion not Freedom from Religion

Reply To This — User Info — #9

This NYT gossip story is designed for Chris Matthews et al. by goldenboy

Now Matthews and Snufaloufagus and the gang can ask talking heads over and over again,

"so what do think of FEARS that McCain is in bed with the NEOCONS...So what aboutthe FAILED POLICY and NEOCONS and FEARS about McCain...Will the NEOCONS use FEAR to control McCain's FAILED POLICY..."

That's basically what we'll be hearing, and it is transparent fluff like this that provides a basis for asking the questions. I'm afraid we've become a nation of retards because most voters can't see through it and don't ask questions when journalists don't source their articles.

I say we start putting McCain stickers on every NYT box we can find.

"The most dangerous form in which oppression can overshadow a community is that of popular sway" -James Fenimore Cooper

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