"The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

It would be entirely appropriate if The New York Times served as the vehicle that united the various wings of the Republican party behind John McCain.  The Times recent article, implying a romantic relationship between McCain and a female lobbyist, has rallied a number of conservatives to McCain's aid.  Rush Limbaugh, in his own way, has now defended McCain and invited Republican's presumptive nominee to move toward the right a little for some support.

The American Spectator has published an attack on the substance of the story:

"According to Times sources, one current volunteer adviser to McCain, who worked for the Senator on Capitol Hill for a number of years, and had knowledge of McCain's involvement in telecom issues, disputed just about every fact the New York Times presented to him in attempting to verify parts of the story."

National Review has also published a nice, dismissive piece on The Times' story:

"The basis for the Times’s insinuation — “allegation” seems too strong a word — of an affair is the word of two anonymous former McCain “associates” who worried that Iseman was showing up around McCain too often. Since both McCain and Iseman deny that they had an affair, Keller reportedly wanted more evidence before the paper went ahead with the story.

If he found that evidence, it’s not in the article. In fact, the story is so weak that speculation has immediately focused on what it doesn’t say. Surely the mighty Times wouldn’t proceed with such a story unless the editors knew a lot more than was published, right? “I find it very difficult to believe that the Times would have put their chin so far out on this story,” writes the left-wing blogger Josh Marshall, “if they didn’t know a lot more than they felt they could put in the article, at least on first go.”

The Times’s evidence is almost as thin when it comes to the allegation that McCain did favors for Iseman’s clients. The McCain campaign issued a detailed response, which at the very least makes it hard to conclude that McCain did anything out of the ordinary for Iseman."

Time will tell if this is the turning point in McCain's rocky relationship with the right but it has definitely improved the commentary toward him.