Redstate

By Soren Dayton Posted in 2008 | John McCain | The New York Times — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Earlier, I wrote about an egregiously dishonest editorial by the New York Times and asked, "Why does the campaign even bother with the NYT? Why even invite them on the bus and plane anymore. The campaign doesn't invite the DNC, why its surrogate?" The underlying issue has to do with when John McCain's campaign releases his health records. The campaign has promised the 23rd.

Well... Ed Morrissey has found out that the McCain campaign was not going to invite the New York Times to the press conference. And they aren't happy about it. In fact they threatened the campaign.

Deets after the jump.

Here's what Ed's got:

It’s no secret that the McCain campaign believes the Times to be dishonest in its reporting on the candidate, and they decided not to extend an invitation to the Times for the media pool at the release of the medical records on Friday ... but [the campaign] told the Times that they would not receive any credentials for the event.

This prompted a conversation between one Times editor and the campaign staff. Again according to the source, the editor told the campaign that the Times would take a negative view about the release of the records if an invitation was not forthcoming. It was clear that an invitation to the pool would change the nature of the coverage.

Ed correctly points out that this is extortion. This is not acceptable behavior.

Bravo to the McCain campaign for getting in front of this. At least it will be clear to everyone that the NYT is printing a smear job before an editor even gets a copy. Maybe the NYT will impress us.

But I doubt it.