McCain Says of Alleged Affair: "It’s Not True"

By Anastacia Mott Austin

In a surprising universal show of support for John McCain, The New York Times came under fire from all sides this week after publishing a report hinting at an inappropriate relationship between McCain and a 40-year-old lobbyist.

"Obviously I'm very disappointed in the article," said McCain. "It's not true."

The Times ran a story reporting that McCain and 40-year-old lobbyist Vicki Iseman had a close relationship during his bid for the presidency in 2000. The article claimed that McCain’s advisors at the time became convinced the relationship had become romantic, and tried to prevent Iseman from seeing McCain.

The story added that McCain had written letters on behalf of Iseman’s clients, who "often had business before the Senate committee McCain led."

Even conservatives, who have complained that McCain is too liberal to be the Republican candidate for President, criticized the newspaper. Mike Huckabee came to McCain’s defense, telling reporters from NBC, "You know, I’ve campaigned now on the same stage and platform with John McCain for 14 months. I only know him to be a man of integrity." Added Huckabee, "Today he denied any of that was true, I take him at his word. I have no further comment other than that."

The advisers mentioned in the article reportedly spoke only on the condition of anonymity.

"This is much more a story about journalism than it is about John McCain," said current McCain senior adviser Steve Schmidt, adding that the story was something one might expect to see in The National Enquirer, not The New York Times.

Sources say that The Times rushed the story, which they had been working on for months, to press after a rumor that an article by the New Republic was about to come out revealing the internal struggle at The Times over whether to run the McCain story or not.

Schmidt told the press that the New Republic had called the McCain campaign about the conflict at The Times, saying the campaign knew the story might come out.

The New York Times executive editor Bill Keller released a statement defending the paper’s decision to print the story. "Our policy is we publish stories when they are ready," stated Keller. "‘Ready’ means the facts have been nailed down to our satisfaction, the subjects have all been given a full and fair chance to respond, and the reporting has been written up with all the proper context and caveats. This story was no exception. It was a long time in the works. It reached my desk late Tuesday afternoon. After a final edit and a routine check by our lawyers, we published it."

Keller added that the newspaper had not been challenged on the actual contents of the story.

Not so. Countless politicians and public figures have come out in support of McCain, blasting The New York Times. Independent senator Joe Lieberman was among them, telling reporters, "The story I think is outrageously unfair to him. There’s no ‘there’ there."

McCain’s wife Cindy remained supportive of him and echoed her own disappointment at the story. She added her own double-negative filled statement that we are guessing was meant to be in support of her husband: "…my children and I not only trust my husband, but know that he would never do anything to not only disappoint our family, but more importantly, disappoint the people of America."

McCain said at a press conference that he felt it distracted from the issues at hand. "It does distract, and it keeps me from talking about the big issues and the not so big issues, and hopefully we can get this thing resolved and behind us and move forward with the campaign," said the senator.

McCain added that the account of former adviser John Weaver in the original article, in which Weaver stated he’d warned Iseman to stay away from the presidential candidate, was doubtful. McCain said he was not aware of whether the exchange had happened, adding, "Since it was in The New York Times, I don’t take it at face value."