The McCain story may well turn out to be the not-so-sharp instru­ment with which the New York Times deliv­ers the coup de grâce to Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.

Here’s the thought: Ten straight vic­to­ries mean that Barack Obama’s had noth­ing but good press since the Feb­ru­ary 9 con­tests. What’s more, Obama’s been gain­ing in national polls and in Ohio and Texas. The only plau­si­ble way that Hillary could stem that tide is to get some seri­ously bad news about Obama on the tele­vi­sion and the front pages of the news­pa­pers and the inter­webs. That would be a tall order in any case—witness the flame-​out of the pla­gia­rism and Michelle-is-finally-proud-of-the-country sto­ries. But now the McCain did-he-or-didn’t-he spec­tac­u­lar (com­bined with the should-the-Times-or-shouldn’t-they mini­tac­u­lar) is guar­an­teed to occupy the jour­nal­ism corps for at least a week. Which means that HRC really only has March 3, the day before the big pri­maries, to get what­ever nasty thing she has to say about Barack up and into the news cycles. And by then it’ll be too late.