John McCain and the NYT's Kid Gloves

This morning we have a tie in the stumbling-around, lost-bearings contest: John McCain and the New York Times.

Yesterday, straight-talkin' McCain again accused Barack Obama of being in the ideological pocket of the terrorist organization Hamas, an accusation based solely on an unsolicited comment made by one of Hamas' advisers in a radio interview last month: "We like Mr. Obama and we hope that he will win the election."

Being ill content with the marketing of merely one logical fallacy, McCain "went on to accuse Mr. Obama of agreeing to negotiate with the president of Iran, who on Wednesday referred to Israel as 'a stinking corpse facing annihilation.' He described that as 'a distinct difference between myself and Senator Obama.'"

All rather standard political hyperbole and distortion, in response to which Obama simply noted that McCain must be "losing his bearings." Not really, for this was nothing out of the ordinary for a Republican presidential candidate -- which is to say, it was pure rubbish. Right?

Well, yes, of course. With the possible exception of Teddy Roosevelt in 1904, what Republican candidate since Abraham Lincoln in 1864 has offered much of anything but pure rubbish?

So that's the familiar, well-worn substance of McCain's remarks. No real news there.

What caught my eye, however -- in fact, what made both of them bulge -- was the New York Times' coverage of McCain's gibberish. Check this out: 

But important nuances appear to have been lost in the partisan salvos, particularly on Mr. McCain’s side. An examination of Mr. Obama’s numerous public statements on the subjects indicates that he has consistently condemned Hamas as a "terrorist organization," has not sought the group’s support and does not advocate immediate, direct or unconditional negotiations with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president. 

Important nuances?

Did that passage not specifically refute, point by blunt point, what McCain had so irresponsibly tossed around?

Obama has -- and the Times took the time to look this up, just so there was no mistake -- "consistently condemned Hamas," never "sought the group's support" and never championed any notion of "immediate ... or unconditional negotiations" with Iran's president.

Those are nuanced differences from what McCain had charged?

If I'm ever arrested on, say, a bogus bank robbery charge, I should hope the Times would not rush to my defense by noting that I was out of the country at the time of said offense and further noting that my towering, documented alibi in court is a "nuanced" one.

One wonders how strongly Obama must word a position before the press concedes that some contradictory charges are, to put it politely, but fabrications of his opponent's political mind. For instance the very day before McCain repeated his latest humbug about Obama and Hamas, the Illinois senator appeared on CNN and "again called Hamas a terrorist group and said that 'we should not talk to them unless they recognize Israel, renounce violence and are willing to abide by previous accords' that Israel has negotiated with its neighbors and with the Palestinian Liberation Organization."

That quote within a quote came from the Times as well. If there is "nuance" in it, anywhere, it escapes me. Completely.

Furthermore the Times noted this "is not a new position for Mr. Obama. In 2006, he, like Mr. McCain, was a co-sponsor of the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act, which called on 'members of the international community to avoid contact with and refrain from financially supporting the terrorist organization Hamas' until it met all of the same requirements that Mr. Obama enumerated again on Thursday."

Hence the Times was, in fact, reporting in a roundabout way that McCain is, in fact, as full of it as a Christmas goose. There was, as we learn farther down in the article, nothing "nuanced" about McCain's remarks after all. Yet we're treated to that "objective" coloration right off the bat.

And so we begin a fresh campaign season of "journalistic balance" -- one in which political lies are gingerly addressed with such overweening fairness that the coverage itself slides into a morass of fabrication.