Cindy McCain lawyer invokes Obama Drug use and Half Brother

Cindy McCain lawyer invokes Obama drug use

John Dowd, Cindy McCain's attorney, complained in a letter to New York Times executive editor Bill Keller earlier this month that the paper had scrutinized the GOP nominee's wife but not investigated matters surrounding Barack Obama including his youthful drug use.

"You have not tried to find Barack Obama's drug dealer that he wrote about in his book, Dreams of My Father," Dowd wrote in a two-page letter sent to Keller while the paper was reporting a piece about Cindy McCain.

The McCain campaign released the missive late Friday night in response to that story, to be published in the paper's Saturday edition. It's the first time anybody so closely associated with McCain has raised the issue.  

Continuing the campaign's drumbeat of criticism against the Times, Dowd wrote on Oct. 1 that the paper was not covering the two candidates equally. In addition to the reference to Obama's "drug dealer," Dowd notes that the Times also has not "interviewed his poor relatives in Kenya and determined why Barack Obama has not rescued them."

After mentioning the topics, though, Dowd suggests that "none of these subjects on either side are worthy of the energy and resources of The New York Times."