Forgetting for a second that McCain probably didn't write the thing himself, let's take a look at that Iraq policy op-ed of his that the NY Times refused to publish, in a move that has our favorite libertarian Frances Martel up in arms.

I’m not a John McCain fan by any means, but what glorified liberal rag The New York Times did to him and his editorial today crossed boundaries of objectivity and decency that should not have been crossed.

I think there's another answer, and it's this: McCain, or his speechwriter surrogate, submitted a genuinely unpublishable piece. Take a look for yourself over at the Drudge Report, which I commend for bringing this issue to light--not because I care about self-referential analysis of old media by new media, but because this op-ed is seriously educational, in a bad way.

Full disclosure: I think the surge worked. I thought it would, and I'm glad we did it. I do think we should think about eventually leaving a country we had no business in in the first place. But none of this has anything to do with why McCain's piece was rejected. I doubt it would have been accepted by the Crimson. It's a thinly-disguised attack ad, a shallow and partisan rhetorical stream. Case in point: It mentions Obama ten times. Ten. I'm excluding pronouns. (Examples, and much, much, much more, after the jump...)

I was going to post the entire op-ed (it's not long) with the Obama parts highlighted, to show how partisan, pissy, and unconstructive they are--but then I realized that was the entire piece. So here are some highlights:

Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge... 
Perhaps he is unaware...
The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale...
It consisted of the same old proposal...

You get the point, right? Or maybe you don't. It gets worse as you continue in the document:

To make this point, he mangles the evidence...
He makes it sound as if...
Senator Obama is also misleading...

Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders... but he did no such thing... perhaps that’s because he doesn’t want to hear what they have to say.

Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. 

Ouch. And I say "ouch" not on behalf of Obama--who, as some of you recall, I didn't support during the primaries anyway--but on behalf of McCain, or, rather, on behalf of journalistic principles. That is not presidential writing; that is bitchy, ad hominem attack. That's what you have your VP pick do.

Anyway, then we get to the part we're all waiting for: McCain's actual plan for Iraq. And the best thing I can say for it is that it's concise.

I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.

To paraphrase Aaron in Broadcast News, what a lot of alliteration from calculating candidates caught with scant to say! Yes, Senator, we should talk about "winning," about our goals in Iraq. Did you? Via Kate Phillips at the Caucus blog, the email from the editor who rejected McCain's submission:

...However, I’m not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written. I’d be pleased, though, to look at another draft. Let me suggest an approach.

The Obama piece worked for me because it offered new information (it appeared before his speech); while Senator Obama discussed Senator McCain, he also went into detail about his own plans.

The NYTimes rejected McCain's piece for one simple reason: It was bad. And instead of doing something about it--like following through with standard Op-Ed procedure and, heck, submitting another draft--they threw a hissy fit and made it into a critique of the Times.

“We have elections in this country, not coronations and it’s unfortunate that The New York Times wouldn’t allow their readers to hear from John McCain and make their own judgment,” Hazelbaker told FOX News.

Oh, and in a lovely end to this saga, the piece in question was then published by the Post, forever cementing the hierarchy of New York newspapers.