NYT aids McCain

John McCain has oft had trouble this primary season recruiting conservatives in the media to support his candidacy. The New York Times' baseless smear piece has finally given him something to unify the conservative base around him. Notably, Rush Limbaugh has, albeit finally, come to McCain's defense.

Limbaugh wrote in an e-mail to Politico: “The story is not the story. The story is the drive-by media turning on its favorite maverick and trying to take him out. The media picked the GOP's candidate, the NYT endorsed him while they sat on this story and is now, with utter predictability, trying to destroy him.”

Limbaugh added: “This is what you get when you walk across the aisle and try to make these people your friends. I'm not surprised in the least that the NYT would try to take out John McCain. Predicted this, in fact, way back in the early 2000s. Sen. McCain courted the media, cultivated them, even bragged that the media was his ‘base.’ I cringed when I heard it because the media turning on McCain was as predictable as the sun rising in the morning.”

Limbaugh was one of several influential conservatives who, to the delight and relief of the McCain campaign, immediately decided that the behavior of the Times — not the senator — should be the issue.

This is borderline hilarious. The Times, a champion of McCain's fights against conservatives in his own party, delay an unsubstantiated quasi-investigation into a possible affair and indications of corruption, so they can discredit him when he becomes the front runner. Instead of some "I told you so" type of backlash the so-called journalists probably expected from the Limbaugh crowd, McCain actually gets support.

What's even funnier is the fact that the story itself is receiving less attention than the questionable journalistic practices employed prior to its publication. Frankly, I'm not surprised the Times chose to publish the piece; their bias is laughable. I expect more hit-pieces against McCain in the future. I am somewhat surprised at Limbaugh's quick support. In a lesser-of-two-evils sense, I'm sure he prefers McCain to the NY Times. I think it's only a matter of time before he uses this approach in a McCain-Obama conflict and supports McCain more and more. This is a promising first step in uniting all factions of the GOP to McCain's defense.