Mayor Criticizes Article Implying McCain Affair

Mayor Bloomberg is criticizing the New York Times for publishing a report that implied the Republican front-runner in the presidential race, Senator McCain, may have had an affair with a lobbyist.

"I think that the story alleged things either explicitly or implicitly that they had no evidence for. That's not, 'All the news that's fit to print,'" Mr. Bloomberg said yesterday, invoking the Times's motto, which is printed on the top left corner of its front page every day. "I hope that the Times would be more careful the next time," he added.

Mr. Bloomberg was speaking to reporters at a press conference in the Bronx to announce an electronic health records system the city is subsidizing for certain primary care doctors.

The Times is facing widespread criticism for publishing the story last Thursday, including from Mr. McCain, readers, and the newspaper's public editor, Clark Hoyt, who wrote on Sunday that the paper was wrong to suggest Mr. McCain may have had an affair without providing readers with independent evidence to back up the allegation.

Mr. Bloomberg, considered by some to be a possible candidate for president, said the press has a responsibility to print stories that have a degree of accuracy and "understand that the responsibility to provide the news is not just to put out facts."

"If there is evidence on the record of serious wrongdoing that pertains to somebody's ability to serve, yeah, sure, that is the press's job," he said. The public editor "did not think that this story measured up to that standard."

Mr. Bloomberg also defended Ralph Nader's entry into the presidential campaign, but warned that it's almost too late for a presidential hopeful to get on the ballot.

"It would take a lot of money that probably Ralph Nader doesn't have," the multibillionaire mayor said. He said it's good for voters to have more choices.

"That's what democracy is all about, and this business of Ralph Nader being a spoiler, you know, in any three-way race, two of the three are going to be spoilers. In any two-way race, one of the two is going to be a spoiler," he said. "Come on. Everybody's got a right to do it. You're not spoiling anything. If people want to vote for you, let them vote for you. And why shouldn't they?"