McCain Pal Iseman Files $27 Mill Suit Against New York Times

December 31, 2008 in General by Christopher Howell

Filed under: Republicans, John McCain, Scandal, Media

Vicki Iseman, the lobbyist who was the subject of a February New York Times article that raised the possibility of an affair with John McCain, is now suing the paper of record for $27 million. From Hot Air:

Remember that one? It blew up in the middle of the primaries, alleging that McCain staffers were convinced he’d had a “romantic” relationship with her in 2000 and that he’d admitted to acting “inappropriately,” then burned white hot for two days before it fizzled from the fact that even the left was embarrassed by how shoddy it was. Now, 10 months later, safe from any campaign consequences, it’s payback time.

At the time, I questioned the Times’ editors about their own sourcing policy, but after off-the-record conversations with several Times editors, I got a canned email statement, standing by the story. My piece was pretty detailed, check it out.

Now, it appears those poorly-sourced chickens are coming home to roost, and the Times is in no mood to talk about it. Ironically, Iseman’s attorneys may get their best material from the Times’ public editor, who summed up the problem with the story several days later:

The article was notable for what it did not say: It did not say what convinced the advisers that there was a romance. It did not make clear what McCain was admitting when he acknowledged behaving inappropriately – an affair or just an association with a lobbyist that could look bad. And it did not say whether Weaver, the only on-the-record source, believed there was a romance. The Times did not offer independent proof, like the text messages between Detroit’s mayor and a female aide that The Detroit Free Press disclosed recently, or the photograph of Donna Rice sitting on Gary Hart’s lap.

I’m no lawyer, but this doesn’t look too good for the Times. No word yet on whether they’ll be calling in the Mayor of Paris as a character witness.