Desperate to publish something - anything - to take down Sen. John McCain's presidential candidacy, the New York Times has been overlooking the manner in which he has been gaming campaign finance laws to his own advantage, as George F. Will points out in the New York Post:
"Last summer, with his campaign destitute, McCain applied for public funding, which entails spending limits. He seemed to promise to use taxpayer dollars as partial collateral for a bank loan.
"There are two ways for a candidate to get on Ohio's primary ballot - comply with complex, expensive rules for gathering signatures, or simply be certified to receive taxpayer funding. McCain's major Republican rivals did the former. He did the latter....
"Although his campaign is run by lobbyists; and although his dealings with lobbyists have generated what he, when judging the behavior of others, calls corrupt appearances; and although he has profited from his manipulation of the taxpayer-funding system that is celebrated by reformers - still, he probably is innocent of insincerity. Such is his towering moral vanity, he seems sincerely to consider it theoretically impossible for him to commit the offenses of appearances that he incessantly ascribes to others.
"Such certitude is, however, not merely an unattractive trait. It is disturbing righteousness in someone grasping for presidential powers."
Meanwhile, what used to be known as the "newspaper of record" has been chasing its own tail, alleging that he had a romantic relationship with a female lobbyist a decade ago (totally based on hearsay) and claiming that he was not a native-born citizen (also untrue - when he was born in the Panama Canal Zone, it was considered a U.S. territory, and so it remained until Jimmy Carter gave it back to Panama).
"Last summer, with his campaign destitute, McCain applied for public funding, which entails spending limits. He seemed to promise to use taxpayer dollars as partial collateral for a bank loan.
"There are two ways for a candidate to get on Ohio's primary ballot - comply with complex, expensive rules for gathering signatures, or simply be certified to receive taxpayer funding. McCain's major Republican rivals did the former. He did the latter....
"Although his campaign is run by lobbyists; and although his dealings with lobbyists have generated what he, when judging the behavior of others, calls corrupt appearances; and although he has profited from his manipulation of the taxpayer-funding system that is celebrated by reformers - still, he probably is innocent of insincerity. Such is his towering moral vanity, he seems sincerely to consider it theoretically impossible for him to commit the offenses of appearances that he incessantly ascribes to others.
"Such certitude is, however, not merely an unattractive trait. It is disturbing righteousness in someone grasping for presidential powers."
Meanwhile, what used to be known as the "newspaper of record" has been chasing its own tail, alleging that he had a romantic relationship with a female lobbyist a decade ago (totally based on hearsay) and claiming that he was not a native-born citizen (also untrue - when he was born in the Panama Canal Zone, it was considered a U.S. territory, and so it remained until Jimmy Carter gave it back to Panama).
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