McCain-Palin Love-Hate Media

The McCain-Palin campaign seems to be at war with the media. On Monday, John McCain's senior adviser Steve Schmidt slammed the New York Times as nothing more than a partisan rag. Schmidt might want to break the news to Steve Duprey, the McCain adviser who scurries at many campaign stops to get copies of it for the candidate and his top aides. He might also want to break the news to McCain himself, who has enjoyed a very friendly relationship with the paper and many of its biggest stars -- as recently as 24 hours before the Schmidt attack. The McCain campaign also complained about being called "liars," asking the media to scrutinize specific elements of Sen Barack Obama's record. But the call was so rife with simple, often inexplicable misstatements of fact that it may have had the opposite effect: to deepen the perception, dangerous to McCain, that he and his aides have little regard for factual accuracy. Then on Tuesday, the traveling press was informed that reporters would be banned from covering Gov Sarah Palin's meeting in New York with world leaders; only photographers and a TV crew were to be allowed in. The move appeared designed to ensure that Palin, who has faced only two interviews since becoming the GOP Veep candidate would face no questions. CNN decided to yank its crew in protest, a major blow to the McCain campaign's efforts to get TV coverage of this highly stage-managed moment. The Associated Press also apparently objected, as did other networks. According to The New York Times, the campaign subsequently relented and decided to let in a producer. But that left print reporters out in the cold.