PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (AFP) - John McCain's White House campaign Monday lashed out at the media and declared that the venerable New York Times was "150 percent" behind Democratic hopeful Barack Obama.
McCain senior strategist Steve Schmidt rebuked journalists he said had failed in their duty to submit Obama to intense scrutiny and accused news organizations of hounding McCain's running mate Sarah Palin.
"Whatever the New York Times once was, it is today not by any standard a journalistic organization," said Schmidt on a conference call with reporters.
"It is a pro-Obama advocacy organization that every day attacks the McCain campaign, attacks Senator McCain, attacks Governor Palin, and excuses Senator Obama.
"This is an organization that is completely, totally, 150 percent in the tank for the Democratic candidate, which is their prerogative to be, but let's not be dishonest and call it something other than what it is."
"It is an organization that has made a decision to cast aside its journalistic integrity and tradition to advocate for the defeat of one candidate -- in this case, John McCain."
Schmidt's outburst came in
specific response to a question about a story in Monday's paper which said McCain campaign manager Rick Davis had lobbied for 30,000 dollars a month for five years to defend mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Davis said on the conference call he had been on leave of absence from his company for 18 months, and had not done any lobbying work in the area for up to a year-and-a-half before that. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080922/ts_alt_afp/usvotemccainmedia