N&O’s biased Times’ McCain op-ed story

McClatchy’s liberal/leftist Raleigh News & Observer isn’t eager for its readers to learn the NY Times refused to publish Sen. John McCain’s op-ed response to one the Times’ published for its presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama.

It buried the story at the bottom of page 3 under what’s the smallest font headline I’ve ever seen in an N&O headline.

And at that, the headline pitched the story from a Times’ perspective: “Paper defends rejection of McCain piece.”

It followed that with this brief, 184-word story:

The New York Times defended its decision not to publish an op-ed article about the Iraq war as first submitted by Republican candidate John McCain on grounds it customarily reviews such pieces with the author.

McCain's presidential campaign submitted the op-ed on Friday. In it, the Arizona senator describes how the buildup of U.S. forces in Iraq has helped curb violence. He also chides Democratic rival Barack Obama for outlining his plan for Iraq before his current meetings there with commanders and Iraqi leaders.

In e-mail to the campaign on Friday, David Shipley, an op-ed editor at the newspaper, said he could not accept the piece in its current form but would look at another version. In the message, released by McCain's campaign, Shipley wrote that McCain's article would "have to lay out a clear plan for achieving victory -- with troops levels, timetables and measures for compelling the Iraqis to cooperate. And it would need to describe the senator's Afghanistan strategy, spelling out how it meshes with his Iraq plan."

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said the campaign will not submit a revised op-ed.

The N&O’s political bias in its story based on “reporting” by the Anything for Obama AP is evident in its failure to mention a single “quoted” example of what Times editor Shipley objected to in McCain's op-ed.

And speaking of Shipley, do you have to ask why the N&O failed to tell readers he’s a former speech writer for President Clinton and is married to Al Gore staffer Naomi Wolf?

Maybe the N&O didn't mention any of that because the people who control and spin news reporting at the N&O feel Shipley's "a professional MSM journalist" just like them.

Well, who’ll disagree with that?

Still, a passionate Dem like Shipley telling McCain he has to change his op-ed so it "mirrors" his candidate's op-ed is really news fit to print.

And N&O readers deserved to know about it, even if that would upset Obama's MSM flacks at the Times, and help expose how so much of MSM really works.