McCain Campaign Uses Lobbyist to Strike Back at Iseman Scandal

A very interesting email from the McCain campaign:

Well, here we go. We could expect attacks were coming; as soon as John McCain appeared to be locking up the Republican nomination, the liberal establishment and their allies at the New York Times have gone on the attack. Today's front-page New York Times story is particularly disgusting — an un-sourced hit-and-run smear campaign designed to distract from the issues at stake in this election. With John McCain leading a number of general-election polls against Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the New York Times knew the time to attack was now, and they did. We will not allow their scurrilous attack against a great American hero to stand.

The New York Times — the newspaper that gave MoveOn.org a sweetheart deal to run advertisements attacking General Petraeus — has shown once again that it cannot exercise good journalistic judgment when it comes to dealing with a conservative Republican....

John McCain has a 24-year record of serving our country with honor and integrity. He has led the charge to limit the money and influence of the special interests in politics and stomp out corruption. His life and his record prove just how preposterous the smear by the New York Times really is...

The problem? The writer of this email, defending John McCain from accusations of being too close to a lobbyist, is McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis, a former lobbyist himself.

Update: Oh, and by the way — even though the McCain campaign is going to war with the New York Times, it is still touting its recent NYT endorsement on its website.