If I didn't know any better, I'd have thought I was kidding about the "uniting the talk radio bloc" effect of Thursday's McCain-lobbyist piece. But no: McCain's single best twenty-four hour period of fundraising came in the immediate aftermath of the publication of that article.

By Thursday morning, when the article appeared in the print editions of The Times, the McCain campaign had begun an aggressive attack against the newspaper, calling the article a smear campaign worthy of The National Enquirer. It was a symphony to the ears of Mr. McCain’s conservative critics.

Operating on the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, many conservatives who had long distrusted Mr. McCain on a variety of issues, including his peculiar fondness for talking to reporters for hours on end, rallied to see him at war with a newspaper they revile as a voice of the left. (In fact, Mr. McCain said only that he was "disappointed" with the newspaper, and left the incendiary attacks to his surrogates.)

These people....