Wow, that didn't take long.  McCain becomes the inevitable nominee on Tuesday and the smear machine cranks out it's first product on Thursday.  One might almost suspect the machine was already warmed up and ready. 

All I needed to read from the NYT article 

Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers ....
 ....several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.

Translation: some staffers suspected but other staffers were too cowardly to go on the record and actually say so - -but neither of them knew for sure. 

Me? I'm a practical sort, show me some video or STFU.  There's a war on assholes, FOCUS.   

Notice how the careful wording deliberately muddles whether the "top advisors" and anonymous sources are the same people?  If they aren't this whole article is based on third-hand innuendo, and if they are the whole anonymity angle disappears because anyone can find out who is "top advisors" were 8 years ago.   This isn't reporting, it's whispered chatter in a high school bathroom. 

I have lot's of doubts on this one.  First, it's in the New York Times, the one under criminal investigation for leaking classified information.  They have already shown the willingness to compromise their own credibility for their agenda.  How anyone but the willingly gullible can give that rag the time of day anymore is one of the great mysteries of our time.

Second, anonymous sources.  When the basis of an obviously very potentially damaging article is third-hand innuendo it shows one thing very clearly; that in printing a story of this magnitude they are more, muchly much more, concerned about the resulting fallout from the magnitude than they are about the truth of the story.  But that's the New York Times, if there's no news fit to print we'll make some up!

Third, on a baser level, my specialty,  ... honestly now, would a guy like McCain, or any guy for that matter, 

risk losing this?

   
                
                                                                                                           For this?    


I don't think so. Twelve years younger and still doesn't look as good.  The dude's old, but he ain't blind, or stupid.

I remember deer hunting with my Dad and older brothers many years ago up north .  One night a bartendress was giving Dad the eye.  We got a kick out of that and of course gave him no end of shit about it.  I'll never forget how he responded: "boys" he said "it would have to be a hell of lot better than what I get at home before I even thought about getting it anywhere else, and I just don't think that's possible".  No wonder I respect and admire the old man so much. 

UPDATE.  Powerline weigh in  here...

On Fox News tonight, Bob Bennett, who is representing McCain with respect to the Times story--that doesn't mean that he will sue the newspaper, as that is impossible under current law--said that the Times had lowered its standards by printing this rather absurd smear. That is incorrect, of course. The Times is a mouthpiece for the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, nothing more. Its smear of McCain--not the last, to be sure--is entirely consistent with the editorial policies it has maintained for many years. Tomorrow's story is just one more reminder of why no sophisticated person takes the Times seriously as a news source.

Yeah, Bennett is extending an unwarranted professional courtesy by implying the times let it's standards slip.  They've been low for a long time.