Did The New York Times Do John McCain A Solid?

Here’s an e-mail that Kathryn Lopez says is indicative of “a lot” of e-mails she’s getting this morning.

I’m the typical conservative who has not been happy with the McCain ascendancy, but the NYTimes has accomplished what Tojo did with Pearl Harbor. They have awoken a sleeping giant. We have been reminded who the real enemy is and it is not Senator McCain. I’m ordering my bumper sticker today.

Okay, let me see if have the lay of the land here. John McCain needs conservatives behind him, and he wants them sooner rather than later. He’s not going to get them without a rather frank give and take between him and them and he’s not entirely sure he wants to do what’s necessary to get them at all. But he kind of needs them and he’s not altogether sure that they’ll just fall in line come November.

Meanwhile, the New York Times has been sitting on a story since December. He “personally pleaded” with the editor not to release it.

Eventually they do, and it turns out to be a pretty flimsy curtain of innuendo and allegation with no real weight behind it. In other words, it was a hack job. Not just that, it was a hack job by the New York Times, the mothership of leftist propaganda and biased journalism, against a Republican right in the middle of a campaign.

So McCain has himself a suitably aggrieved press conference, paints himself the victim of the liberal media where he fairly radiates hurt, and hints at a kinship with conservatives because of this grievous wound from the horrid Grey Lady.

Then the National Review and other such places get a flood of letters from conservatives who have themselves a come to Jesus moment as they realize “who the real enemy is”. They’re ready to help slay the evil New York Times dragon and all its liberal dragonettes.

Meanwhile, Johnny Mac didn’t have to move a single position nor did he have to deal with conservatives in any meaningful way at all. All he had to endure was a story that’ll be mostly forgotten in a month or so as the Obamessiah walks across Lake Michigan or Hillary finally snaps and does her best Ike Turner impression on Bubba.

Mighty convenient, that. Mighty convenient.

UPDATE: Another come to Johnny Mac moment at The Corner. Lopez says she’s “still getting many along these lines”. Allahpundit has perhaps the best roundup going.

UPDATE 2: Might we be seeing talk radio starting to come ’round, as well? Perhaps not, but you have to admit that the article sure makes it look that way.

Regardless, that’s the way the story is breaking today and you can bet your bottom dollar that McCain will gain conservative votes out of this. And he won’t have had to give one single inch.