And Gene Lyons is the perfect person to talk about the Gray Lady's foibles.
The nutroots desperately wanted to believe this story because of some kind of "payback." These are the same people who are trashing Hillary Clinton using right-wing style talking points in order to help their shitbag choice:
“[S ] ooner or later,” writes the inimitable Charles Pierce, “someone’s going to have to break down this pattern he has of doing things completely contrary to what he’s supposed to be about, apologizing for it, and then getting doublecredit for the apology while the original offense goes straight down the old memory hole.” But not this time, because as Times editors ought to have realized, any attempt to apply what this column has long described as the Clinton rules to any Republican, much less a Republican popular with reporters, whom the personable McCain reportedly treats as members of his campaign entourage, was doomed to fail. According to the Clinton rules, which also applied to Al Gore and John Edwards, and may yet affect Barack Obama, allegations are treated as facts, sometimes even after they’re proved false. (Google “Gore, inventing the Internet” for a classic example. )
