Strib's love affair with McCain continues

So today the story from the Washington Post is that McCain is a guy whose campaign is made up primarily of lobbyists (59 federal lobbyists are raising money for his campaign), but who makes his political living railing against Washington lobbyists. The Post headlined the story "The Anti-Lobbyist, Advised by Lobbyists."

But in Strib, the headline reads "McCain defends lobbyist ties," while the subhed says:

Sen. John McCain said Friday that while lobbyists serve as close advisers to his presidential campaign, they are honorable and he is not influenced by corruption in the system.

See, John McCain isn't a hypocrite - he's just isolated the "honorable" lobbyists. And remember that when this story first came up two days ago the Strib introduced it with a story headlined "McCain says report suggesting inappropriate relationship with female lobbyist is 'not true."

In the end I think this Republican bias in places like the Strib may work against the Republican party because we can't really know how much power these new memes will have in the weeks and months ahead, but it could be significant. Right now the Republican talking heads on MSNBC and FOX news are claiming the episode is good for McCain because it gets his base behind him. Maybe. But the longer this goes on the more McCain's soft spots may be exposed to a skillful orator and politician, like, say, Barak Obama. Not to mention that, Karl Rove like, it cuts into McCain's strengths.

...adding: Maybe McCain was right when he called this an organized campaign against him. Now Michael Isikoff of Newsweek is writing that McCain lied in his response to the New York Times article on him when he said he had never been lobbied by Paxson Communications, the telecom company at the center of this scandal. Turns out McCain himself gave a deposition where he admitted to it.