Crush Liberalism

NYT can’t help herself: Another false hit job on McCain

When Team Mac refers to the Old Gray Hag as an Obama advocacy group, it’s not an exaggeration.  From the Hag:

One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month from the end of 2005 through last month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain’s campaign manager, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement. (Which two? We’re not told. Yet additional unsubstantiated, “nameless” sources by the NYT! – Ed.)

The disclosure undercuts a remark by Mr. McCain on Sunday night that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had had no involvement with the company for the last several years.

Mr. Davis’s firm received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, the two people said. …

Sounds damning.  It actually would be damning…if it were true.  Which it’s not.  And the Hag knows it. 

Team Mac responds:

Today the New York Times launched its latest attack on this campaign in its capacity as an Obama advocacy organization. Let us be clear about what this story alleges: The New York Times charges that McCain-Palin 2008 campaign manager Rick Davis was paid by Freddie Mac until last month, contrary to previous reporting, as well as statements by this campaign and by Mr. Davis himself.

 

In fact, the allegation is demonstrably false. As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis separated from his consulting firm, Davis Manafort, in 2006. As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis has seen no income from Davis Manafort since 2006. Zero. Mr. Davis has received no salary or compensation since 2006. Mr. Davis has received no profit or partner distributions from that firm on any basis — weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or annual — since 2006. Again, zero. Neither has Mr. Davis received any equity in the firm based on profits derived since his financial separation from Davis Manafort in 2006.

Further, and missing from the Times‘ reporting, Mr. Davis has never — never — been a lobbyist for either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Mr. Davis has not served as a registered lobbyist since 2005.

Though these facts are a matter of public record, the New York Times, in what can only be explained as a willful disregard of the truth, failed to research this story or present any semblance of a fairminded treatment of the facts closely at hand. The paper did manage to report one interesting but irrelevant fact: Mr. Davis did participate in a roundtable discussion on the political scene with…Paul Begala.

Again, let us be clear: The New York Times — in the absence of any supporting evidence — has insinuated some kind of impropriety on the part of Senator McCain and Rick Davis. But entirely missing from the story is any significant mention of Senator McCain’s long advocacy for, and co-sponsorship of legislation to enact, stricter oversight and regulation of both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — dating back to 2006. Please see the attached floor statement on this issue by Senator McCain from 2006.  

In other words, the Times just completely made shiite up out of thin air.  With all those “multiple layers of fact-checkers” at its disposal, you would think that the Hag would know this stuff before we bloggers would.

Team Mac also notices a disparity:

To the central point our campaign has made in the last 48 hours: The New York Times has never published a single investigative piece, factually correct or otherwise, examining the relationship between Obama campaign chief strategist David Axelrod, his consulting and lobbying clients, and Senator Obama. Likewise, the New York Times never published an investigative report, factually correct or otherwise, examining the relationship between Former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson and Senator Obama, who appointed Johnson head of his VP search committee, until the writing was on the wall and Johnson was under fire following reports from actual news organizations that he had received preferential loans from predatory mortgage lender Countrywide.

Yeah, that Rick Davis cat is such a slimy heavy-hitting lobbyist that so effectively lobbied McCain that…um…McCain tried to rein in Fannie/Freddie three years ago, ultimately being thwarted by Senate Democrats in bed with Fannie/Freddie.  I’m not saying that Obama himself was successfully lobbied to stop the Fannie/Freddie regulation bill from passing…just that over a hundred grand in Fannie/Freddie money just so happened to appear in Obama’s hands, enough to make Obama the third-highest paid recipient of Fannie/Freddie money after less than four years in the Senate.

Nope…no liberal media bias!

September 24, 2008 Posted by crushliberalism | McCain, media bias | Leave a Comment