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Jodi Kantor
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September 29 at 7:21pm

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I saw on facebook that you went to Xavier, and if you don’t mind, I’d love to ask you some advice about a story. I’m a reporter at the New York Times, writing a profile of Cindy McCain, and we are trying to get a sense of what she is like as a mother. So I’m reaching out to fellow parents at her kids’ schools. My understanding is that some of her older kids went to Brophy/Xavier, but I’m trying to figure out what school her 16 year old daughter Bridget attends—and a few people said it was PCDS. Do you know if that’s right? Again, we’re not really reporting on the kids, just seeking some fellow parents who can talk about what Mrs. McCain is like.

Also, if you know anyone else who I should talk to—basically anyone who has encountered Mrs. McCain and might be able to share impressions—that would be great.

Thanks so much for any help you can give me.

Jodi Kantor
Political correspondent
New York Times
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212 556 4596

Pretty scummy stuff, and the McCain campaign is firing back noting that the New York Times never put any effort into figuring out who Barack Obama’s drug dealer was in college:

It is worth noting that you have not employed your investigative assets looking into Michelle Obama. You have not tried to find Barack Obama’s drug dealer that he wrote about in his book, Dreams of My Father. Nor have you interviewed his poor relatives in Kenya and determined why Barack Obama has not rescued them. Thus, there is a terrific lack of balance here.

I suggest to you that none of these subjects on either side are worthy of the energy and resources of The New York Times. They are cruel hit pieces designed to injure people that only the worst rag would investigate and publish. I know you and your colleagues are always preaching about raising the level of civil discourse in our political campaigns. I think taking some your own medicine is in order here.

Mudslinging is par for the course with any political campaign, but it’s not exactly fair when supposedly objective reporters do the liberals’ mud-slinging for them.

Meanwhile, Glenn Greenwald (while condemning the Times) says that “the right” doesn’t have any room to object to this sort of muckraking because they went after the Clinton and Edwards affairs.  Marc Ambinder excerpts Greenwald approvingly.

Of course, there’s a bit of a difference between the two situations isn’t there?  Diddling interns in the White House, and putting your mistress on your campaign staff while your wife battles cancer, aren’t exactly the actions of people with sound judgment.  And isn’t sound judgment exactly the sort of thing we want in a leader?