The Drudge Report revealed this morning that less than a week after running Barack Obama‘s “My Plan for Iraq” piece on the N.Y. Times Op-Ed page, the Times editorial board rejected a counterpoint Iraq War article written by John McCain. “The paper’s decision to refuse McCain’s direct rebuttal to Obama’s [piece] has ignited explosive charges of media bias in top Republican circles,” Drudge writes.
Obviously using material forwarded by either McCain campaign strategists or friends of same, Drudge quotes Times Op-Ed editor David Shirley as having said in an e-mail last Friday that “it would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama’s piece, [although] I’m not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written.'”
Drudge’s piece includes the original McCain article. One portion of the article indicates, however, that the Times did McCain a roundabout favor by not running it.
“In 2007 [Obama] wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost,” McCain wrote. “If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance. To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.”
Hello? Despite his attempt to walk back his recent Der Spiegel statement, Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable. So McCain should be glad the piece didn’t run. On top of the Times guys having given him a liberal-media-bias issue to run with for a few days, which will help his cause.