Vicki Iseman Sues the New York Times

Lobbyist Vicki Iseman is suing the New York Times for 27 million dollars for a story it ran in February suggested that she had an "inappropriately close" relationship with Senator John McCain, then candidate for President of the United States.

The New York Times used anonymous sources not to so much assert that Vicki Iseman and John McCain were having an affair but to suggest that the anonymous sources were worried that Vicki Iseman and John McCain were having an affair.

The story naturally had a Washington quid pro quo angle:

"Mr. McCain, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, both say they never had a romantic relationship. But to his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity."

Now that the election is over and the legal action cannot become too much of a political matter it is, as Hotair's Allahpundit suggests, payback time. Vicki Iseman is claiming defamation, which is to say that the New York Times not only asserted she and John McCain had an affair but had it had occurred while she was a lobbyist dealing with John McCain's Senate committee, suggesting not only adultery but at least the appearance of a conflict of interest. Vicki Iseman is asserting that the story in the New York Times is demonstrably false. Vicki Iseman is claiming damage to reputation and emotional and mental health as a result of the story. Finally, Vicki Iseman is asserting both malice and negligence on the part of the New York Times in printing the story.

In response, the New York Times is issuing the boiler plate response that every media outlet uses when faced with this kind of legal action. The New York Times stands by its story.

It will never happen, but one wishes that just once that a newspaper, magazine, or TV network having been accused to lying and libeling would response with, "Well, yes, the story was a pack of lies and we were trying to get the subject of the story. You caught us. Sorry about that."

Allahpundit suggests that the one bit of good news for the New York Times is that, considering its problems with revenues, that the case is "judgment proof", which is a lawyerly way of saying that the New York Times hasn't get the money to pay any kind of settlement with Vicki Iseman.

Then again, maybe if Vicki Iseman wins, the New York Times can ask for a government bailout. After all, everyone else is. Failing that the Times can declare Chapter 11 and put itself up for sale to somebody who can actually run a newspaper. Rupert Murdoch perhaps.

Sources: Vicki Iseman files $27 million lawsuit against NYT over McCain hit piece, Allahpundit, Hotair, December 30th, 2008

For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk, Jim Rutenberg, Marilyn W. Thompson, David D. Kirkpatrick and Stephen Labaton, The New York Times, February 21st, 2008

Vicki Iseman v. The New York Times Company, William Keller, James Rutenberg, Marilyn Thompson, Stephhen Labaton, David Kirkpatyrick, and Dean Baquet, Complaint before United States District Court for Eastern District of Virginia, Richmond Division