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Smears, innuendo, unnamed sources, and influence peddling all are components of The New York Times article about Senator John McCain "scandal" which was published a couple of days ago. In other words, it is business as usual from the perspective of a left-leaning newspaper publisher.

The chronology of the sequence of events is interesting. This story references events of 8 years ago. A senate committee investigation headed by Robert Bennett resulted in this lawyer, a Democrat, requesting that Senator McCain be removed from the investigation because the story had no credibility. The Senate inquiry eventually dropped the investigation for lack of any evidence of problems.

John McCain was endorsed by The Times as their choice for the Republican nomination for president earlier this year. Now, they choose to smear his name, taking an old story which never had any footing in reality, and making it a front page item. Democratic attorney Mr. Bennett called it disgraceful in a recent interview on Fox News.

News journalists are taking a tremendous risk when they try to influence the nation's politics to favor their personal politics. Besides violating all rules of journalistic professionalism, they insult the intelligence of the American public. No proper news organization publishes a damning story to one's reputation without adequate named sources for their information.

It is business as usual for The Times to use scandal as a means of selling their newspapers. There is a "Jerry Springer" type of audience that loves this sort of thing. In this particular case, it might backfire on them as people of conscience react to this attack on one of our few American heroes of today.

Republicans will likely benefit from this unfounded story as they unify to defend Senator McCain. He might not be someone's favorite candidate because he is so independent most of the time, but he is probably the last politician that should be challenged on ethics questions. The strength of character, and moral fiber demonstrated during his military years as a prisoner of war are evidence to his personal character.

My hope is that The Times gets its just rewards over this issue. Being discredited by the news community in general is appropriate. Their retraction, and apology for printing a story without merit is highly in order. Also, it will be necessary for their rehabilitation within the news industry. The power of the press must uphold standards to protect everyone from potential abuse, including politicians.

Learn more about this author, Bob Schmidt.
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