Legal News

Another NYT Article About the McCains, Another D.C. Lawyer

By Dan Slater

UPDATE: We just heard back from Catherine Mathis, an NYT spokeswoman. In an e-mail, she wrote: “The story was a richly reported, completely fair, respectful - even empathetic - profile of a would-be first lady. The material is almost all from named sources, and the McCain campaign has not disputed a single fact. The Times has reported vigorously on the backgrounds of the candidates and the influential people in their lives, including both prospective first ladies. We reported where the facts led us.”
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She has done relatively few solo events, grants interviews reluctantly . . . and in introducing her husband at events, she offers few of the heartwarming anecdotes that are the stock in trade of the political spouse. When she finishes, she stands silently behind him, sometimes with an approving smile, sometimes looking strained. — NYT profile of Cindy McCain, October 18, 2008, from “The Long Run” series

The Law Blog’s weekend began typically enough. We collected the papers from the stoop and sat down to read the NYT’s profile of Cindy McCain, which we found a bit more favorable, but not by much, than the New Yorker’s Cindy McCain profile from last month, entitled “The Lonesome Trail.”

Then we had a flashback to February. It was then that another NYT article from the “The Long Run” series, which suggested a romantic link between John McCain and a telecom lobbyist, had caused McCain to lawyer up. Months before the February article ran, McCain reportedly hired Skadden’s Bob Bennett — a registered Dem, noted author, brother of politico Bill Bennett, and lawyer for Bill Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky and Paula Jones flaps — to help handle the Times inquiry.

Did the NYT’s profile of Cindy lead to legal work for any other Beltway Bigs? You betcha. On Saturday morning, when the profile ran, Akin Gump’s John Dowd (pictured, and whom Loyal LB’ers will link to Monica Goodling), fired off a letter to Bill Keller, the NYT’s executive editor. It begins:

I represent Cindy McCain. I write to appeal to your sense of fairness, balance and decency in deciding whether to publish another story about her. I do this well knowing your obvious bias for Barack Obama and your obvious . . . hostility to John McCain. I ask you to put your biases and agendas aside.

And continues:

It is worth noting that you have not employed your investigative assets looking into Michelle Obama. You have not tried to find Barack Obama’s drug dealer that he wrote about in his book, Dreams of My Father. Nor have you interviewed his poor relatives in Kenya and determined why Barack Obama has not rescued them. Thus, there is a terrific lack of balance here.

I suggest to you that none of these subjects on either side are worthy of the energy and resources of The New York Times. They are cruel hit pieces designed to injure people that only the worst rag would investigate and publish. I know you and your colleagues are always preaching about raising the level of civil discourse in our political campaigns. I think taking some [of] your own medicine is in order here.

I ask you to let Cindy McCain carry on in her usual understated, selfless and dignified way. The fabrications and lies of blackmailers are not fit to print in any newspaper but particularly not in The New York Times.

Sincerely,

John M. Dowd

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP

A call to the New York Times was not immediately returned. A spokesman for the Obama campaign did not immediately respond to an e-mail.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on October 20, 2008 (boomark / email).