Quoting emails from "John McCain"

Isn't the New York Times really stretching it by attributing an email message to John McCain today?

“I returned to the Senate with greater influence than before I ran, and I used that influence to work with senators on both sides of the aisle,” Mr. McCain said in an e-mail message. “I don’t believe in hoarding political capital just for the sake of possessing it.”

Remember this is John "It's a Google" McCain, who has admitted that aides "go on [the Internet] for me. I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself.” It's generally implausible that any email from a politician to a reporter isn't at least vetted by a press staffer, but in McCain's case there's almost no question that he did not write the email.

Comments

[David]

This seems like a stretch. The Times gave a by line to Obama for his op ed a few days ago, even though staff members may have participated in writing it. That was the right thing to do IMHO. Presidents are credited with speeches, even when we know for sure that speech-writers played a major role in writing them.

[Seth]

That's a rather stringent criteria Brendan. So do only extemporaneous conscious stream of thought remarks count as the candidates words?