I think Steve Benen really does a good job of distilling the failure of John McCain and his campaign to respond to the lobbyist sex and corruption story in a coherent manner.

But taking a step back, consider the broader McCain pushback against the NYT story. By Wednesday night, the McCain gang was absolutely in rapid response mode, knocking down the article with considerable ferocity. By Thursday morning, the senator, well prepped, gave a series of sweeping denials at a major press conference.

Far too many of the McCain claims, however, haven’t withstood even minor scrutiny. McCain hadn’t spoken to anyone at Paxson, except he had. His letters on Paxson’s behalf were considered perfectly acceptable to the FCC, except that they weren’t. The McCain campaign made no effort to squash the NYT article, except that they went to great lengths to do just that. McCain never even spoke the NYT about the piece, except that he had.

Josh Marshall added, “There’s no way of getting around the fact that McCain routinely, almost constantly, issues categorical denials that are demonstrably false. The very volume and clarity of the bogusness of so many of these statements might even be viewed as his best defense.”

And why would a presumptive presidential nominee make obviously false, easy-to-disprove claims? Because McCain doesn’t really care — he knows reporters have given him an unearned reputation as a “straight talker,” and he assumes he can more or less lie with impunity.

Clearly this is a cookie that I’ve been nibbling at for the last two days, but Benen and Marshall get the argument nice and tight.

Paul Waldman’s interview with Newsweek’s Matthew Phillips delves into the how and why of the media’s infatuation with John McCain.