Senator John McCain’s unprecedented war against the New York Times continues to amaze.

There are really two separate stories here: one, the ties of Rick Davis’ former firm to Fannie and Freddie Mac and a second one about the New York Times’ ideological war against all enemies of Obama.

Part I

Politico gets it exactly right with the headline: “McCain camp attacks Times, doesn’t deny report.” The McCain statement hotly denies Davis’ involvement (which no one has alleged) and does not address whether his former outfit was doing business with the Fannie and Freddie as recently as last month.

Of course, the New York Times is trying to have it both ways. While their story might be technically correct (no one has addressed the direct allegations), it is essentially a non-story meant to create a moral equivalency. Let me explain both parts.

Non-story: Who cares what a former employer does? The minute you leave, your responsibility ends–whether is by resignation or leave of absence. And Davis never even worked on the account when he did work there. At best, this is guilt by association–what the Left hates Sen. McCarthy for.  There is no news story here. So why write the “story”?

“Moral equivalency.” Obama is tied to Fannie and Freddie seven ways to Sunday: He took more campaign contributions from them than any other senator, save one. He hired Fannie’s former chief executive to run his vice-presidential search team. And, despite the denials, appears to have hired a second former Fannie chief executive to advise him on “housing policy.” Meanwhile, McCain loudly demanded reform for years while the fashionable friends of Fannie (and Obama) looked on, unmoved.  These facts, presented in tv spots, would tar Obama with the greatest economic disaster of the past decade. So the search was on. Somehow tie someone connected to McCain to Fannie and, then say, “well both parties did it…”

If one continues to insist that McCain was long the lonely voice for reform and Obama is up to his eyeballs with Fannie’s corruption, you will get written off as a partisan hack.

So far the strategy seems to be working.

McCain would be better off saying “So what? When my former employer, the U.S. Navy, makes a mistake, everyone knows it would be unfair to blame me. Why do you hold my campaign manager to a different standard?”

Part II

The other half of McCain counter-blast is  so simultaneously snarky and high-minded that it could be a New York Times editorial. From campaign deputy spokesman Michael Goldfarb:

We all understand that partisan attacks are part of the political process in this country. The debate that stems from these grand and sometimes unruly conversations is what makes this country so exceptional. Indeed, our nation has a long and proud tradition of news organizations that are ideological and partisan in nature, the Huffington Post and the New York Times being two such publications. We celebrate their contribution to the political fabric of America. But while the Huffington Post is utterly transparent, the New York Times obscures its true intentions — to undermine the candidacy of John McCain and boost the candidacy of Barack Obama — under the cloak of objective journalism.

The New York Times is trying to fill an ideological niche. It is a business decision, and one made under economic duress, as the New York Times is a failing business. But the paper’s reporting on Senator McCain, his campaign, and his staff should be clearly understood by the American people for what it is: a partisan assault aimed at promoting that paper’s preferred candidate, Barack Obama.

Goldfarb is right.

John Steele Gordon, over at Commentary, puts it in historical perspective:

This is something very new. Politicians have been complaining about specific news stories since modern media first developed in the 1830’s and 40’s. And they have complained about individual organizations that made no secret of their biases, such as the Chicago Tribune under Robert R. McCormick in the 1930’s and 40’s and its campaign against FDR and the New Deal.

But I can think of no instance when a campaign has taken on a news organization as nationwide and as powerful as the New York Times, and publicly accused it, in effect, of journalistic prostitution

That the McCain campaign has decided that is a net plus for them to do so is, perhaps, a sign of just how much less powerful the mainstream media have become in the last decade as the Internet has broken their monopoly as gatekeepers of information. And it is certainly a sign of the decline of the New York Times from its once unquestioned position as the world’s most powerful newspaper to its present sad state.

I imagine the Gray Lady is not happy being called merely a dishonest version of Arianna Huffington.

Yes, the New York Times has hurt itself in all this. Every questionable story shrinks its reputation; every drop of river water erodes rock, reducing the once mighty to pebbles. It takes a long while. But the New York Times has been at this dangerous game for at least a generation. Results are visible. Its market capitalization is now roughly equal to the daily variation in Google’s capitalization. Soon, it may be no more powerful than Ozymandias.