Old Friends in the Media See a New Side of McCain
By JIM RUTENBERG
NYT
ST. PAUL — When Republicans gathered at Madison Square Garden to celebrate President Bush’s second nomination four years ago, Senator John McCain gathered at a restaurant uptown with some of the biggest stars in journalism to celebrate his birthday. Among those mingling over cocktails and fine French food with Mr. McCain and his wife, Cindy, were Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, Bob Schieffer, Maureen Dowd, Tim Russert — “our people,” as an old campaign hand reminisced on Wednesday.
Those there that night now feel as if they are living in some sort of alternate reality in the Xcel Energy Center here, where Mr. McCain is to accept the Republican nomination on Thursday.
The convention has already included some of the most intense attacks against journalists by a campaign in memory, with Mr. McCain’s aides accusing them of biased, sexist and generally unfair coverage of his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.
In the first three days here, Mr. McCain’s aides have sent out news releases criticizing individual reporters for their coverage. They have canceled an interview with Larry King of CNN to protest what they viewed as unfair questioning of a spokesman by Campbell Brown. They have dismissed as “fiction” an article in The New York Times about the process of vetting Ms. Palin. And Mr. McCain’s chief strategist, Steve Schmidt, has accused journalists here of pursuing a “mission to destroy” Ms. Palin with “a new level of viciousness.”
(Continued here.)
NYT
ST. PAUL — When Republicans gathered at Madison Square Garden to celebrate President Bush’s second nomination four years ago, Senator John McCain gathered at a restaurant uptown with some of the biggest stars in journalism to celebrate his birthday. Among those mingling over cocktails and fine French food with Mr. McCain and his wife, Cindy, were Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, Bob Schieffer, Maureen Dowd, Tim Russert — “our people,” as an old campaign hand reminisced on Wednesday.
Those there that night now feel as if they are living in some sort of alternate reality in the Xcel Energy Center here, where Mr. McCain is to accept the Republican nomination on Thursday.
The convention has already included some of the most intense attacks against journalists by a campaign in memory, with Mr. McCain’s aides accusing them of biased, sexist and generally unfair coverage of his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.
In the first three days here, Mr. McCain’s aides have sent out news releases criticizing individual reporters for their coverage. They have canceled an interview with Larry King of CNN to protest what they viewed as unfair questioning of a spokesman by Campbell Brown. They have dismissed as “fiction” an article in The New York Times about the process of vetting Ms. Palin. And Mr. McCain’s chief strategist, Steve Schmidt, has accused journalists here of pursuing a “mission to destroy” Ms. Palin with “a new level of viciousness.”
(Continued here.)
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