Last week I called for the media to fight back against politician attacks and lying campaign claims. That is exactly what is happening now, to the point where the McCain team is lashing out in frustration:
"We are first amendment absolutists on this campaign and the press and everyone who wishes to cover this race from a blogosphere and media perspective is constitutionally protected to write whatever they want," said Steve Schmidt, the campaign's chief strategist. "But whatever the New York Times once was, it is today not by any standard a journalistic organization. It is a pro-Obama advocacy organization that every day attacks the McCain campaign, attacks Gov. Palin and excuses Sen. Obama. There is no public vetting... there is no level of outrage directed at his deceitful ads... This is an organization that is completely and totally 150 percent in the tank for the Democratic candidate.... Everything that is read in the New York Times should be evaluated by the American people from that perspective. It is an organization that has made a decision to cast aside its journalistic integrity and advocate for the defeat of one candidate and the election of another."
— Today, the Arizona Republican's presidential campaign went to war with the Grey Lady. Asked to respond to an article that brought to light the fact that McCain campaign manager Rick Davis had earned nearly $2 million in lobbying fees from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (based, almost primarily, on his access to McCain) at the same time that he was attacking Barack Obama for his own ties to those very institutions, aides to McCain went off.
Shorter Steve Schmidt: Why aren't you letting us get away with the crap that we got away with in 1988 and 2004?
Keep fighting, people. Re-double your efforts to fact check McCain, and investigate Obama just as hard (so he can't get away with ads like these.) My sense, living in a battleground state with lots of commericials, is that the truth factor in advertising has improved in the last week -- some of that is the nature of the financial crisis, but some of that is the media pushback.
So....no retreat, baby, no surrender.*
(* Obligatory pop-music reference.)