McCain campaign slams media

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Sen. John McCain's top campaign strategist accused the news media Tuesday of being "on a mission to destroy" Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin by displaying "a level of viciousness and scurrilousness" in pursuing questions about her personal life.

Steve Schmidt said the campaign feels "under siege" by wave after wave of news inquiries that have questioned whether Palin is really the mother of a 4-month-old baby, whether her amniotic fluid had been tested and whether she would submit to a DNA test to establish the child's parentage.

Arguing that media queries are being fueled by "every rumor and smear" posted on left-wing Web sites, Schmidt said mainstream journalists are giving "closer scrutiny" to McCain's little-known running mate than to Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

The McCain camp has been unusually aggressive in pushing back against the media, seemingly hoping to persuade journalists to back off in their scrutiny of Palin. Obama campaign officials have complained that their man has been subjected to considerably more investigative reporting than McCain has, but they have done so in more low-key fashion.

By contrast, Schmidt spoke on the record in denouncing as "an absolute work of fiction" a New York Times account of the process by which the McCain campaign vetted Palin. He also charged that Newsweek columnist Howard Fineman was predicting that the governor might have to step down as McCain's vice-presidential choice.

Fineman said he has "never, ever said that," and that he has noted positive aspects of Palin's candidacy. "They decided a long time ago that they were going to work the refs," he said.

Elisabeth Bumiller, lead author of the Times report, said she is "completely confident about the story." As for the campaign's criticism, she said: "This is what they do. It's part of their operation."

McCain also canceled a scheduled appearance with CNN's Larry King on Tuesday in retaliation for a Monday interview in which Campbell Brown repeatedly pressed campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds to provide one example of a decision that Palin had made as commander of the Alaska National Guard.

Schmidt said the McCain camp is caught in the worst media "feeding frenzy" he has seen. The fact that unsubstantiated allegations appear on the Internet "is not a license for smearing" Palin, he said.

The intensity of media inquiries hit a new level after an anonymous blogger on the liberal Web site Daily Kos last weekend charged that McCain's running mate is actually the grandmother of Trig Palin, the 4-month-old baby born with Down syndrome, and that the real mother is her daughter, 17-year-old Bristol Palin. That led to mainstream media inquiries, which prompted the McCain camp to disclose Monday that Bristol is five months' pregnant and plans to have the baby and marry the teenage father.

Some journalists, Schmidt said, have demanded to see Trig's birth certificate, or have asked when Palin went into labor. Others, he said, have asked whether Palin's eldest son, Track, who serves in the Army and is deploying to Iraq, is a drug addict. "Categorically false," Schmidt said. "This is crazy."

Bloggers on the left and right increasingly drive media coverage by turning up the volume on questions until they are difficult to ignore.

Traditional media outlets can amplify and legitimize such reports, which may be why the McCain campaign is fighting so hard to keep the Palin allegations confined to the Internet. Denouncing the news media for bias also plays well with many Republican voters.

Palin has been unavailable to the media since she became McCain's surprise choice Friday. Schmidt said she will be made available for interviews after the convention.

Perhaps the greatest concern to the McCain campaign is that the inquiries will create a perception that her nomination is in trouble. "We are being bombarded by e-mails and phone calls from journalists asking when she will be dropping out of the race," Schmidt said.