NT Times ombudsman says moveon.org got improper ad rate

. . . and the rest is silence.

 

Buy this man a kewpie doll...

 

Sorry...I tend to skim these threads when I arrive late. But I have one question: have the words "McCain-Feingold violation" appeared anywhere on this thread yet?

 

Since there isn't much left of M-F, I doubt it.

 

Do you think, for one second, that they would have given Guliani and the Bush people the same rate if no one had found out about the rate moveon got?

I'm glad they got the same rate. At least someone at the NYT was thinking at the time.

 

And just for the hell of it, we have this ....

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0907/5992.html

 

Have you ever made an argument that wasn't based on a hypothetical?

You seem to know an awful lot about what "would" happen if "things" were "different".

 

Well, I guess this makes up for Judy Miller and the wiretapping story hold.

 

Nice dodge.

And giving an ad to McCain doesn't erase the possible campaign-finance violation. It just means there are two violations, instead of one. Corporate contributions to politicians and PACs are banned under McCain-Feingold...that presumably applies to in-kind contributions, too.

This, of course, is why campaign finance "reform" -- like any other government regulation of political activity -- is a baaaaad idea.

 

Nothing improper in the ad rate.
People get deals all the time and buying standby advertising is an old trick.
The only exceptional thing is they got placement, but that's probably not unusual with a Monday paper since it appears the ad was bought late in the week and it wasn't a wink wink nudge nudge deal. Just that the dummies probably get made on Friday and just the reality of getting $65K in the paper instead of nothing.
It is especially hard to crow liberal bias when Rudy G. got the exact same rate. But the Repubs like to cry about how they get picked on all the time when they control the White House and Congress.

On the politico story. So. GQ made a decision to spike, not the campaigh. So how is that liberal bias?

 

I think the whole snafu says more about the quality of people newspaper jobs are attracting (non-journos excepted, of course). Between the NYT giving a wrong rate on a potentially controversial full-page ad and the SJ Merc's $3 million budget problem, its clear those on the other side of the building are not the best and the brightest.

 

No, but I didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday and you're in some kind of dream world if you think the NYT editorial and ad department are wishing their sweetheart deal to moveon hadn't been discovered.