A Sign Of The Times
Everyone is talking about The New York Times refusal to run John McCain's editorial about Iraq after they ran Obama's. (They're talking mostly thanks to Matt Drudge, who is about as big as the Times, covering the story--this is truly an example of how the internet has changed the game.)
The Times claims Obama's piece was news, laying out his plans, while McCain was merely responding to and attacking Obama. Having read both editorials, I find the argument plausible (while most conservatives I know don't), though it does leave one to wonder if the results would have been the same if the names were reversed.
Regardless, I still have to ask why isn't McCain's piece significant enough to run anyway? I understand the Times opinion page is valuable real estate, but do they get that many editorials from major party nominees running for President in the last few months of the election? Are they afraid this will set some sort of bad precedent? Couldn't they run this, and if they're suddenly flooded by 700-word essays from McCain and Obama, then they could declare a moratorium.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:28 AM
3 Comments:
Hey cool- we're getting the same spam comments as the WSJ blogs. Sounds like boneheaded move for NYT since the perception is that they have tanked for Obama, and you would think they would understand the whole "perception beats reality" thing since thats their business. I think the underlying issue is that McCain has poorer staff support and doesn't write as good op-eds.
Better op-eds? Obama's editorial was pseudo-news, where he was vague as alway about what he'd do in Iraq, and didn't really break new ground. McCain's was a response, it's true, but he said things in no uncertain terms that made it a lot more fun to read.
As a liberal (at least by this blog's standards) and a NYT supporter who usually finds attacks on the MSM to be tedious and not factually supported, I think it's ridiculous that the NYT did not publish McCain's response. Don't we always say we want politicians to respond to particular points so we can make a fair comparison? I agree with LAGuy's point that a detailed letter from a major party candidate should be pretty high on the priority list for the editorial page.
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