McCain's Love Life, Case Closed

Vicki Iseman and the right to privacy win. The New York Times and careless reporting lose. That's the score on the convoluted settlement today of a libel suit over an article suggesting that the Washington lobbyist was having affair with John McCain.

A year ago, a Times examination of the candidate's history with lobbyists, began:

"Early in Senator John McCain’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers.

"A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself--instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him..."

This assertion raised a howl at the time, even leading the Times' Public Editor to conclude that "if you cannot provide readers with some independent evidence, I think it is wrong to report the suppositions or concerns of anonymous aides about whether the boss is getting into the wrong bed."

In today's settlement of Iseman's suit, the Times publishes a curt editor's note that it "did not intend to conclude that Ms. Iseman had engaged in a romantic affair with Senator McCain or an unethical relationship on behalf of her clients in breach of the public trust."

Far from a retraction, this is supplemented with a piece by Ms. Iseman's lawyers arguing that their client "is not a government or public official, and in our view, not even a public figure. Had this case proceeded to trial, the judicial determination of whether she is entitled to the protections afforded a private citizen would have been the subject of a ferocious, pivotal battle...That judicial contest has now been concluded in this instance, but the issue deserves ongoing scrutiny, certainly in our schools of law and journalism, but also in the arena of public debate.

"Indeed, the essential quality of our public discourse, even the very character of our national culture, will be heavily influenced by why, where, and how we draw this line."

In this case, the Times gets off without a financial penalty or even an outright apology, but the settlement strikes a blow against defining journalistic deviancy down.

Bristol Palin Channels Lance Loud

In an eerie echo of a classic reality show of the 1970s, Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol is going public on Fox News to tell teenagers that pregnancy is "not glamorous."

In the groundbreaking PBS series, "An American Family," young Lance Loud came out of the closet as his mother told his father on camera that she wanted a divorce. The Palins started down their road to erasing the line between public and private by announcing Bristol's condition when the governor was chosen as the Republican VP candidate and by including the father-to-be in family photos at the convention.

Now the 18-year-old mother is telling Fox News' Greta Van Susteren, "It's just, like, I'm not living for myself anymore. It's, like, for another person, so it's different. And just you're up all night. And it's not glamorous at all. Like, your whole priorities change after having a baby."

The interview was her own idea, Bristol Palin says, and she told her parent about it the day before the taping. She wanted to tell her story to help others her age: "I'd love to [be] an advocate to prevent teen pregnancy because it's not, like, a situation that you would want to strive for, I guess."

Gov. Palin makes a cameo appearance at the end of the interview. "Not the most ideal situation, certainly you make the most of it," she observes, noting that her daughter is a "strong and bold woman, and she is an amazing mom. And this little baby is very lucky to have her as a mama. He's going to be just fine."

Politics aside, the Palin family is adding a new dimension to the era of the TV reality show and making it difficult for even hardened cynics not to sympathize with the outspoken young mother and wish her more privacy for the future.

Big Brother Bloomberg

After the uproar over Bush Administration surveillance of American citizens, the news from Bloomberg country today is unnerving.

During his Hamlet-like deliberations about whether or not to run for President as an Independent, New York's Mayor has been collecting and collating a lot of information about all of us.

According to the Huffington Post, "Using the microtargeting model, research firms working for Bloomberg are gathering comprehensive information on voters throughout the country, such has who owns a home, has children in college, where they vacation, type of car or computer and past political support. All the puzzle pieces will then be arranged to create a picture of each individual."

After the Bush years, Americans may not be thrilled to have their picture taken this way by Bloomberg or anyone else, especially for the purpose of manipulating their political choices.

In the light of voters' recent attraction to Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee for their individuality, Mayor Mike would be well-advised not to start his run as Big Brother.

The Price of Law and Order

It was never just about abortion. The struggle for America’s soul goes deeper, as the Supreme Court and Congress have been showing us this week.

It was never as simple as faith vs. reason. Rational people can recognize a Higher Power, the religious can respect science and logic.

What it has been about is the conflict between our hopes and fears, between the risks of freedom and the comfort of control, between our needs to feel decent and to feel safe.

Before the trauma of 9/11, the tension between those impulses could be kept in balance. Without that, the vicious idiocy of Bush’s Neo-Cons would never had free rein. For a time, the frustrations of Vietnam allowed Nixon’s paranoia and secrecy to subvert basic American values, but it never came to this.

This is an Executive Branch that makes Nixon look like a paragon of openness and respect for the law.

This is a Congress without the will and guts to stop a war started out of fear and stupidity and too craven to resist the hysteria over immigration and navigate through competing passions and interests toward a responsible compromise.

This is a High Court retreating from messy freedoms such as individual privacy, racial equality, protections from predatory business practices and the right to express unpopular opinions.

A living symbol of all this is Justice Anthony Kennedy, who has emerged, at least for now, as the deciding voter in our losing 5-4 struggle to balance freedom and responsibility.

The duty of judges, he once told an audience, is to "impose order on a disordered reality." But at what price?

By January 2009 we may, to our sorrow, have found the answer to that.