McCain Wages War on Facts, Facts Respond with "Tanks"

Steve Schmidt held a conference call today to press the media to scrutinize Senator Obama's campaign more closely. Steve Schmidt, for those unfamiliar, is Senator McCain's chief strategist on issues of mayhem, destruction, and overall naughtiness. Top campaign officials also report that he was not hugged enough as a child. He's welcome to stop by my apartment any time before Election Day for the biggest hug of his life - I'll hold him close and won't let go for 43 days.

Schmidt came out swinging today against the scourge of the GOP, The New York Times. He accused the liberal rag of failing to properly attack Obama to the same extent that McCain has felt the paper's wrath. Specifically, he whined about how, among other things, no one has pointed out that Senator Biden's son was a lobbyist for the banking industry. Of course, Hunter Biden was a lobbyist, although never for any credit card company or bank, but that didn't stop the McCain campaign. In fact, Jonathan Martin of Politico reports, shortly after Schmidt's rant was finished, RNC communications director Danny Diaz sent out a piece "to illuminate the connection." Anyone familiar with John McCain's line of attacks this fall can probably guess where the story originated: THE NEW YORK TIMES.

When pressed about the series of factual errors Schmidt made on the call, spokesman Brian Rogers, replied, "You are in the tank." Ladies and gentlemen, I give you John McCain's perception of our nation's journalists:



Meanwhile, it would be interesting how the media would react if your VP candidate would ever actually decide to take questions from the press. It's been 24 days - enough already. If she's qualified to be Vice-President, and potentially (shudder) President, then she's qualified enough to handle the U.S. media.

Obama's camp responded by pointing to a dark mark on McCain's past: the Keating Five scandal. They sent out a memo comparing the "more than 40" articles that the New York Times has written about Obama's "life, his religion, his childhood, his politics, his time in the state senate, his time in the U.S. Senate, his family, his religion, his friends, his fundraising and all other manner of associations" to the 0 articles they've written about McCain's incredibly questionable relationship with Charles Keating Jr., former chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. The Senate Ethics Committee accused McCain and 4 Democratic senators (this is how McCain views bi-partisanship) of interfering with an investigation into Keating's company.