End of the one-week scandal about nothing

Mike writes:

As always, I appreciate your reasoned perspective on the Cain harassment “scandal.” It’s so refreshing to read someone who manages to stay truly neutral. Every other commentator seems to have staked out either a pro-Cain or anti-Cain position and is sticking to it. [LA replies: Thank you. I’m reminded of a Jewish comedian I heard when I was a kid who said, “I wish that blacks would gain equality, so we could go back to disliking individual black people if we want.” Well, now that the media’s outrageously improper sexual “harassment” accusations against Cain, from which I defended him, are fading, I’m free to go back to pointing out his complete lack of ability and preparedness for the presidency.]

One thing that seems odd about this whole thing is that I haven’t seen anybody mention the whole Vicki Iseman / John McCain story from 2008. This was a totally fabricated story that blared through the liberal media and was quietly retracted after all the damage was done. It seems like nobody but me even remembers that this ever happened. It goes to show that any man in politics who gets his photo taken within 10 feet of an attractive woman can be attacked on grounds of sexual impropriety if the media chooses to do so, and that such attacks will never damage the credibility of the media outlets who sponsor them.

LA replies:

Iseman is the lobbyist who the New York Times in a hyperventilating front page story in 2008 suggested was having an affair with Sen. McCain. Some McCain ex-staffers had said they were concerned that McCain was seeing too much of her. The Times built this into something that wasn’t there and the media went wild with it for a few days.

The McCain / Iseman story was in the New York Times tradition of Maureen Dowd’s front page story saying that Nancy Reagan had had an affair with Frank Sinatra when she was in the White House.

Here is something on the Iseman story from Huffington Post. And here is something I posted on the sleazy journalism on this story practiced also by the Times of London.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 06, 2011 06:38 PM | Send