The New York Times published a story about a fundraiser that John McCain cancelled. They published the following pushback from the campaign:
“These were obviously incredibly offensive remarks that the campaign was unaware of at the time it was scheduled,” said Brian Rogers, a spokesman for the McCain campaign. “It’s positive that he did apologize at the time, but the comments are nonetheless offensive.”
However, when The Hill and the Washington Post published the story, they published pushback from the RNC that included information about one of Barack Obama’s fundraisers, Jodie Evans:
“While Obama and Democrats launch attacks on Republicans, their silence concerning fundraisers like [Code Pink co-founder] Jodie Evans and Jim Johnson is deafening,” said RNC spokesman Alex Conant. “Obama’s hypocritical attacks undermine everything his campaign is supposed to be about.”
Note that Evans advocated working with Saddam Hussein as human shields in 2002 and 2003, thereby deliberately undermining US foreign policy. Williams Clayton has apologized, while Evans never has.
Why did the NYT feel that this was an appropriate story to (1) publish in the paper, but (2) not use the same response as other papers that pointed out that Obama had even more questionable links?