New York Times Tries to Defend Decision on McCain Article

The New York Times gave John McCain a major gift yesterday when they rejected his Op-Ed on the Iraq war and told him to resubmit something that "mirrored" Obama's piece that had run a few days before. Here's the nut paragraph from the Times email to the McCain campaign:

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.

In other words, the Times was demanding that McCain accept Barack Obama's misguided premises on Iraq and then defend himself in light of those premises. Here's how the Times is defending themselves against the wave of criticism:

It is standard procedure on our Op-Ed page, and that of other newspapers, to go back and forth with an author on his or her submission.

We look forward to publishing Senator McCain’s views in our paper just as we have in the past. We have published at least seven Op-Ed pieces by Senator McCain since 1996.

The New York Times endorsed Senator McCain as the Republican candidate in the pesidential primaries. We take his views very seriously.

If I submitted an Op-Ed to the Times, I would expect them to apply this standard. However, John McCain is one of two men running for president, and once they gave a certain amount of column inches to Barack Obama to discuss his ideas about Iraq, they should have immediately granted the same space to McCain to discuss his vision, regardless of how he phrased it.

Had McCain's piece run without interference, it might not have gotten much notice. Thanks to the Times' rejection, a lot more people will see it. Thank you New York Times.