The End of the Affair

Matt Cooper reports from St. Paul: The passionate love affair between John McCain and the media came to an end yesterday. McCain, once known as the most accessible of politicians who joked that the press was his "base", now runs a campaign that is looking to make the media the major issue because of the controversies surrounding Sarah Palin.

I've seen McCain's media-love relationship up close. A few years ago, I interviewed McCain in front of a meeting of the Magazine Publishers Association meeting in Washington and his reception couldn't have been more welcome. He'd also wowed another M.P.A. meeting in Puerto Rico, not only entertaining them at his formal speech, but late into the night at the hotel's casino. I have a couple of journalist friends who have been offered jobs by Arizona's senior senator.

I say this not to denigrate McCain or his staff, but only to point out the sudden and dramatic contrast with the last 24 hours. Fred Thompson bashed the media last night in his address to the Republican convention and McCain aides have been unloading on the media on and off the record since we all arrived in the Twin Cities.

But it's absurd to blame the controversies surrounding Palin—the 44-year-old, first-term governor from Alaska who broke from obscurity to become McCain's vice presidential choice—on the media. There is a state investigation, not a media one, about her dismissal of a top public safety officer because he wouldn't fire her brother-in-law, who is going through a messy divorce with her sister. McCain campaign officials have made varying accounts of how Palin was vetted.

Today, we learn in The Washington Post, that A.B. Culvahouse, the former White House Counsel who is in charge of the McCain vetting, did not have a formal interview with Palin until a week ago today. And that's leaving aside the questions surrounding both the disclosure of Bristol Palin's pregnancy and the odd circumstances of the governor's delivery of her fifth child.

By the governor's own account, her water broke while she was in Texas earlier this year. She chose to fly home to Alaska without visiting a hospital in the Lone Star state. She chose not to visit a clinic in Anchorage when she arrived but to go to a smaller one near her home town of Wasilla. For anyone who has rushed off to the hospital when a spouse had their water break, it's an odd circumstance.

All of this, though, is not the creation of the media. It's fanned by the McCain campaign which has allowed itself to look less like a maverick effort and more like the work of hacks who let information dribble out slowly. Maybe all of the questions around the governor have innocent answers, but since Palin herself has been kept away from media questioning we're not likely to get answers anytime soon.

Matt Cooper

Get more from the Republican convention in St. Paul with these:
-- Republicans' Bizarre Night
-- Mr. Rove, They're Ready for You in Makeup
-- The G.O.P.s Gov Child.
-- The Republicans Get a Mulligan With Gustav.
-- McCain's Pick of Palin a Game Changer.
-- Drill, Baby, Drill!
-- Where to Eat in the Twin Cities.
-- How to Party Like a Rockstar TV Star With Republicans.

Get a recap of what happened with the Democrats in Denver:
-- Obama Gets Down to Business.
-- Are Obama's Donors Tapped Out?
-- Google's Schmidt: "They Have Guns and We Don't"
-- Why Does Everyone Want In on the Act?
-- I'm T. Boone Pickens and This Will Save America.
-- The Election According to Mr. Burns.
-- The Portfolio.com Capital Index.