McCain Blasts Newsweek's 'Liberal Left-Wing Trash'

July 30th, 2012 6:12 PM

Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) had some harsh words for Newsweek and its Washington bureau chief Howard Kurtz Monday.

According to Politico, the former Republican presidential nominee said of Kurtz's newest article "John McCain Stages Romney Intervention," "It’s just the kind of liberal left-wing trash that I have to put up with from time to time."

McCain apparently took issue with the following in Kurtz's piece:

Four years after his own presidential bid, McCain’s luster as a Republican Party spokesman appears to have dimmed: a number of proposed campaign trips on Romney’s behalf have quietly evaporated, and there has been no offer of a speaking slot at the GOP convention. “He’s chomping at the bit to do something,” a McCain aide confides. [...]

“If you’re the Republican nominee, the campaign is about the future,” says Steve Schmidt, who oversaw McCain’s 2008 effort. “John McCain is very much a figure of the immediate past.”

Right after losing in 2008, McCain went to Tahiti, where he would hang around the hotel desk waiting for a one-page sheet of news to come in. “I almost went crazy,” he recalls. “You’re all geared up. You can’t come to a full stop.”

The former Presidential nominee struck back at a press gaggle in Tampa, Florida:

"The record shows that I supported Gov. Romney early, I went to New Hampshire and endorsed him," McCain said. "It’s just foolishness, it’s just the kind of liberal left-wing trash that I have to put up with from time to time."

Regarding [a factual error in the piece], McCain said: "For example, in the story, it says Sen. McCain went to Tahiti after the 2008 campaign. I didn’t. The most amateur fact-checker would have known that. I went after 2000. That shows you the kind of slip-job work that went to the story, I’m reluctant to even comment on something like that."


The article has since been corrected.

Regardless, one has to wonder how much of McCain's ire was stirred up by Newsweek's pathetic cover story calling Romney a wimp.

I wouldn't discount that being a huge factor.

As for Kurtz, given his status as a so-called media analyst, you have to wonder how he can possibly stand working for a "news outlet" that has moved so far to the left that it's become as credible as MSNBC.

You would think someone wanting to fairly judge all sides of the media wouldn't want to be playing for one of the most biased organizations in the country.

Or is that me once again expecting too much logic from so-called journalists in the 21st century?