Criticism of NYTIMES' coverage way off base

The McCain campaign today took out after The New York Times for its coverage of their candidate, crying that the Old Gray Lady is not a legit news source.

The campaign is dead wrong.

The Times is the nation's newspaper of record for a reason -- it provides quality and quantity in its coverage of any issue or candidate. It has even diversified the ideology of its editorial page columnists, something that most newspapers won't do on their staffs.

If more negative stories have been produced about Sen. John McCain, there is a reason. He has more of a record to examine than his opponent, Sen. Barack Obama. So the campaign should take the coverage as a compliment and confirmation of the point it has been trying to make to voters.

Certainly, the campaign still is steaming over the Op-Ed page decision denying McCain space to respond to Obama's column about his trip to Europe earlier this year.

Obama wrote about what he was going to say to the global audience. McCain simply reiterated his past positions, which did not advance the presidential race discussion. Denying McCain space for his column was the right decision. And I base that on my four years as an editorial page editor faced with the same kind of decisions.

But here is the McCain campaign's beef for you to make your own decision on:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13733.html