McCain vs. Obama: The Op-Ed smackdown
John McCain couldn't have begged for better coverage of his opinion piece countering Obama's New York Times Op-Ed detailing his plan for Iraq. The presumptive Republican nominee got to:
- Rag on the liberal media,
- Get major play across the interwebs, and
- Publish his piece sans edits -- which generally doesn't happen at major newspapers, the L.A. Times included.
And the New York Times didn't really reject the piece. As the paper's Op-Ed editor David Shipley wrote in an e-mail to the McCain campaign, explaining his decision:
It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama’s piece. To that end, the article would have to articulate, in concrete terms, how Senator McCain defines victory in Iraq. It would also have to lay out a clear plan for achieving victory — with troops levels, timetables and measures for compelling the Iraqis to cooperate. And it would need to describe the senator’s Afghanistan strategy, spelling out how it meshes with his Iraq plan.
I am going to be out of the office next week. If you decide to re-work the draft, please be in touch ...
Sounds fair. So here's a question: How many times did Obama's op-ed get sent back for edits, and how much was changed?
Let's focus that finely tuned 20-20 hindsight:
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To bad for the liberal press circulation is dropping faster than the quality of real reporting. Mr. David Shipley sounds a little like a socialist to me and maybe he can get a government, like the IRS and it sounds like he’d fit in really well.
Posted by: Edward Burns Sr | July 22, 2008 at 01:48 PM
Shipley was right to reject this first draft. As much as I dislike giving clicks to Drudge I went and read McC's piece and found it rehashed rhetoric. Sure, Obama had some stale bits too but he was also specific about his goals and how he intended to reach them. McC and the republicans could use a lesson in elaboration and I'm glad the NYT stuck it to him. It's just seven years late and the wrong man but hey, we'll take what we can get.
Posted by: Mike Stevens | July 22, 2008 at 02:41 PM
It should have been a Blowback.
Posted by: Tim Cavanaugh | July 22, 2008 at 03:01 PM