Duke Haring makes two points and I'm going to respond to them one at a time. Here's the first one…
First, the subtle but salient point Mr. Morris fails to distinguish is that Bill Clinton was not impeached for having an affair with Monica Lewinsky. He was impeached for lying about it under oath. Certainly, I don't live in John McCain's head, but I believe that was the basis for his impeachment vote.
I don't live in McCain's head either but after hearing him discuss it a few times in interviews, I got the feeling that the basis for his impeachment vote was that if you want the Republican nomination for president, you'd better not cross the extreme right wing of that party. Maybe it's just me projecting my viewpoint but McCain sure seemed to think the whole accusation against Clinton was nonsense and I remember him saying several times a conviction was impossible. But he still voted to let the process go forward and supported it and I guess I was disappointed that he went along with it. I'd like to think the John McCain of an earlier time would have parted company with the Republican mainstream on this. He used to do that once in a while when he thought they were wrong.
In one sense, you're right that it was about alleged lying, not alleged infidelity. But I think in a larger sense, it was about seeing how much they could embarrass Clinton and lower public opinion of him by trotting out as many details of salacious conduct as possible. And if Democrats applied the same sleazy manuever, they'd gin up some investigation of McCain's contacts with lobbyists and use that as an excuse to dig up and publicize every detail of the man's supposed affair. That would be wrong but it would be quite comparable to the process McCain endorsed in the Clinton/Lewinsky matter.
Here's the other part of Duke's message…
Secondly, while I am no fan of Sen. McCain — my vote went to Ron Paul — I find it interesting that the New York Times sat on this diddling the lobbyist story until after its endorsement helped McCain to effectively lock up the nomination. If the Times had run the story when it first had it, we might now be talking about the possibilities of Obama vs. Romney — not that this is any improvement in my mind. I'm just sayin'.
I doubt the story, at least in the tepid version the Times published, is going to do any harm to McCain's chances. It may even help him win over the kind of voter who thought the Times endorsement was a good reason not to vote for McCain. But it is odd that the Times endorsed the guy while it sat on this story and then released it now. The whole thing seems puzzling to me. What I'd like to know is: Do they think he had this affair? If so, why publish the story if you're going to tap dance around that? If not, why publish the story at all? If you aren't sure, why publish it now?