John McCain's Campaign Enters the Spin Cycle

It's amazing how the Beltway politics/media merry-go-round feeds upon itself.

In just a few hours yesterday, the following vicious cycle occurred…

* In Monday morning's paper, The New York Times runs a story reporting on McCain campaign manager Rick Davis' consulting work for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which netted him $2 million.

* Davis and McCain spokesman Steve Schmidt hastily organize a conference call with political reporters, in which they accuse the Times of being "an organization that has made a decision to cast aside it's journalistic integrity to advocate for the defeat of John McCain."

* Blogger Ben Smith from Politico, who was in on the conference call, immediately writes a blog piece criticizing the McCain camp for several inaccurate statements made during the call.

* McCain spokesman Brian Rogers announces that Politico is also "in the tank" for Barack Obama.

* The New York Times writes an online news article about how the McCain camp "lashed out at The New York Times on Monday, accusing it of dropping its journalistic standards."

* Bill Keller, the executive editor of the Times, does an interview with Politico defending his paper.

* Hundreds of media sources, from The Wall Street Journal to The Atlantic to The Washington Post report on the brouhaha.

* Everyone takes a break and has lunch.

I'm not sure what happened after that because I got a really bad headache and had to lie down.

Tags: New York Times, Politico, The Atlantic, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post