File this under another headline that prior to this election we might have attributed to The Onion. Drudge is reporting that the New York Times turned down an op-ed written by John McCain because it didn't "mirror" the one penned by Barack Obama last week. Obama's piece, which ran in the NYT last Monday — and arguably got a bit lost in all the New Yorker cover hullabaloo — ostensibly took a step beyond the normal he said-he said of campaign rhetoric, and outlined how, once elected, Obama intends to get us out of Iraq. Apparently, John McCain's camp submitted a rebuttal, and was turned down. The difference? According to NYT op-ed page editor David Shipley,

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...It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama's piece. To that end, the article would have to articulate, in concrete terms, how Senator McCain defines victory in Iraq.

Terrific! So basically, McCain is not allowed to be a blogger, he has to think for himself. We'll see if he decides to give it another go (we suspect no — presumably it's better to be dismissed by a liberal leaning rag than be forced to articulate a military plan for withdrawal). In the meantime, we always have Time.