Michael Goldfarb, a web editor for the right-wing Weekly Standard, was a blogger on the McCain campaign last fall. In a Q & A with CJR, he says, among other things, that he was told his role would be to “attack the press” in the blog:
And that struck me as a really bad idea, but when a presidential campaign calls up and offers you a job you take it.
Really? There’s no boundary one should fail to cross when offered a presidential-campaign job? Not in Goldfarb’s world, apparently.
At least readers of this person’s writing now have a solid sense of his ethical standards.
on Jan 30th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
This is a perfect example of exactly what has gone wrong with the culture wars in the US over the last eight years.
Everyone, including journalists, pick sides…. and then do whatever is necessary to fight for their side.
I hope that we are leaving this era behind.
on Jan 30th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Deeds, not words, is how I judge the man. We’ll never know if he did “attack the press” any more or less than any other campaign blogger. The “McCain Report” blog is now completely offline.
Over the last few years, I’d made efforts to preserve early blogs from earlier election cycles — see CampaignTrails. Whoops, I forgot to do it for McCain’s blog. I’ll check with my contacts at the LoC to see if they preserved it.