White House sides with McCain

THE White House sided with Senator John McCain yesterday and accused The New York Times of repeatedly trying to “drop a bombshell” on Republican presidential nominees to undermine their candidacies.

The newspaper has drawn fire from Mr McCain himself and even some of his conservative critics for publishing a report on Thursday suggesting that Mr McCain, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, had an improper relationship with a female lobbyist. Mr McCain said the report was not true.

White House deputy press secretary Scott Stanzel noted the story has received a lot of attention.

“I think a lot of people here in this building, with experience in a couple of campaigns, have grown accustomed to the fact that during the course of the campaign, seemingly on maybe a monthly basis leading up to the convention and maybe a weekly basis after that, the New York Times does try to drop a bombshell on the Republican nominee.

“And sometimes they make incredible leaps to try to drop those bombshells on the Republican nominee.” As for the allegations about Mr McCain, Mr Stanzel said: “I’m not going to speak about the specifics in that story but it has been our impression that they do drop those bombshells.”

New York Times executive editor Bill Keller said: “We think the story speaks for itself.” The newspaper quoted anonymous aides as saying they had urged Mr McCain and Ms Iseman to stay away from each other prior to his failed presidential campaign in 2000. Mr McCain said lobbyist Vicki Iseman was merely a friend. In its own follow-up story, The Washington Post quoted veteran aide John Weaver, who split with Mr McCain last year, as saying he met the lobbyist and urged her to stay away from Mr McCain. Mr Weaver told the Times he arranged the meeting after “a discussion among the campaign leadership” about Ms Iseman.

Mr McCain said he was unaware of any such conversation.