Clark Hoyt found his story for next week.

Today, the New York Times ran a lengthy article on John McCain that has already inspired late night talk show debate and merits a column from the public editor.

Part of its “Long Run” series, the Times questions McCain’s history of pretending to be above the Washington lobbying scene.

The piece has a lot of legitimate reporting on McCain’s hypocritical relationship with corporations. But this reporting will probably get lost in the rumors that McCain had an inappropriate relationship with a lady lobbyist.

But this obfuscation is the Times’s own fault. They lead with the smut:

Early in Senator John McCain’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of
advisers.

A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.

The long of the short of it is that eight years ago, John McCain had an inappropriate relationship with Vicki Iseman, left, a lobbyist who looks a lot like his wife, minus a twenty years. McCain advisors told both of them to stop their relationship, which both have denied had a sexual nature.

Failing a Ken Starr probe, the truth about McCain’s relationship with Iseman will stay between them. And considering our last president, if something inappropriate had happened between them, it probably wouldn’t make a difference with the voters.

Unfortunately, this part of the story overshadows the larger message: Namely, that McCain isn’t the anti-establishment maverick he campaigns to be. Our favorite example: McCain promised never to fly direct from the National Airport to Phoenix because of his role in opening up that air route. But instead of transferring at JFK, McCain just traveled in luxury private jets with lobbyists.

Nuggets like this will get lost in the debate about the why the Times held off on publishing the story and whether they should have published it all.

The Times scooped Michael Isikoff of Newsweek and Michael Calderone of Politico on the piece, and Marc Santora of the Times left the McCain beat over the story. McCain, who did not speak to reporters for the article, called executive editor Bill Keller himself to yell at him for inquiries about his extramarital activities. According to the Drudge report, McCain was fighting with the Times over this story as far back as December.

Whether or not McCain did have an affair, or whether the Times was wrong to publish the story will override legitimate issues in McCain’s character the story does bring out. But by leading with a leggy lobbyist, the Times dug its own grave.