Looking a gift horse in the mouth, conservatives everywhere and whining, moaning, gnashing their teeth and rending their silk blouses over the NYT's decision to send a first draft of McCain's recent Op Ed piece back for a re-write.

This is standard procedure! As someone who used to be a newspaper editor, and now is on the other side of the process as one who WRITES op eds for the signature of government policy people, THIS IS HOW IT IS DONE! You draft up a nice little op ed, you send it to the op ed page editor, they accept a first draft (rarely) or (almost always), they send it back with suggestions to make it better.

What the NYT has done here is not out of the ordinary. They do it to liberals, conservatives, moderates and every one else of whatever political stripe you can imagine.

The NYT has no problem with printing op eds from McCain's op ed writers. They've done it 7 times already since 1996. But there are standards.

And, as we've seen, they've saved McCain from considerable embarrassment by SENDING this one back for re-write. See, the editors at the NYT actually thought McCain WANTED to have an op ed printed on its op ed page, and not just have something ELSE to whine about while Sen. Obama is gathering all the positive headlines.

What is clearly going on here is the McCain campaign taking this all-too-ordinary editorial give-and-take and using it in some kind of lamebrained effort to "whip up the base" in "outrage" over one of their standard whipping boys -- "the LIBERAL media" -- and the most evilest evil of all -- THE NEW YORK TIMES!

Still... It is truly heartbreaking to see such a one-time strong person as McCain... a man who withstood (for the most part) the torture of his North Vietnamese captors, reduced to such base whining over such mundane things as a rejected first-draft of an op ed. What will he do if he somehow is elected President and congress rejects the first draft of proposed legislation? WHINE about it?

Get real. This is how these things are done. Now, unless you have actually worked on an editorial board at a newspaper or have dealt with one as a writer, you have no idea what you are talking about if you continue to talk about this like it was a deliberate swipe against McCain.

But I don't imagine for a moment it will stop you from doing so.

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Putting the partisan signature on hiatus until I get back. Then... WATCH OUT!!!

Ya the NYT has been doing a great job

http://finance.google.com/finance?ch...08&q=NYSE:NYT&

They must be doing well enough for the McCain campaign to be SOBBING over this "imagined slight."

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Putting the partisan signature on hiatus until I get back. Then... WATCH OUT!!!

Did the whining arise directly from his campaign or from the media sources covering it?

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Seems like it's coming from the campaign, doesn't it? I mean, why would the MEDIA whine about it?

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Putting the partisan signature on hiatus until I get back. Then... WATCH OUT!!!

I'm so glad the NYT is not biased. They were more than willing to post Obama's piece, but not McCain's? Now how about well-known media figures trolling along behind Obama as he goes through the Middle East, but you don't see them with McCain? Yep, no bias whatsoever. Give me a break.

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There shall ye find Light

Be thou faithful unto Death
And I will give thee a crown of Life

I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it.

Oh cruel fate, to be thusly boned. Ask not for whom the bone bones. It bones for thee.

They are more than willing to publish McCain's piece. They have said as much. It needed rewrites. Unless you truly understand how "words" end up on a newspaper page, then you have no idea what you are talking about.

Again, Obama invited the "well known media figures." McCain did not. But they were there anyway.

Please deal in fact.

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Putting the partisan signature on hiatus until I get back. Then... WATCH OUT!!!

Well, I find everything a little suspicious. Patterns and stats prove a biased slant.

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There shall ye find Light

Be thou faithful unto Death
And I will give thee a crown of Life

I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it.

Oh cruel fate, to be thusly boned. Ask not for whom the bone bones. It bones for thee.

They have published seven McCain op eds since 1986.

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Putting the partisan signature on hiatus until I get back. Then... WATCH OUT!!!

Because all the media seems to be cheering for one side our the other, depends on which station you tune in to.

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