Around that time, Senator McCain called me. No, Mr. Crowley, he did not ask that the story be suppressed. He did express concern that all of our digging might give rise to rumors, and he asked that we not let it drag on. I used the opportunity to ask him about the suspicion of some of his staffers that he had a romantic or sexual relationship with Ms. Iseman. He said he did not.

Yes, Mr. Cleary, we were aware that a reporter for The New Republic was working on some kind of "back story" about our work on this story. No, it did not affect the timing of publication. The latest draft of the story landed on my desk  or, more precisely, in my e-mail  Tuesday afternoon. I thought it was excellent (for the record, I still think so) and we scheduled it for the Thursday paper.

David Kirkpatrick, one of the reporters who worked on the story, has filed these additional thoughts:

As far as the timing, don’t attach too much significance to the Drudge posting. We heard a second-hand report from a lobbyist about Senator McCain and Vicki Iseman more than a year ago. Early last year we began making careful, quiet inquiries into the matter. Last fall, we learned more about some of the conversations around the campaign concerning Ms. Iseman, and we kept reporting.

It is impossible for us to know who told what to Matt Drudge in December or why. These days, journalists have to live with the possibility that a subject of their reporting or a source for their reporting might try to spread selective information over the Internet. It could be strategic  an attempt to game journalists into publishing prematurely, or to influence their reporting, or to start counteracting the news in advance. Who knows? In this case, it is worth remembering that what appeared on the Drudge Report did not accurately describe what we were working on, the identities of the reporters involved, their views of the story or their editors’ views of the story. So, again, who knows?

Please trust me that none of the journalists involved in this article was dragging his or her feet. To be honest, we wanted this to get over with. We worked hard to prepare as fair, complete and accurate a report as possible, and to do it as soon as we could. We tried to contact as many knowledgeable people as possible. We gave Senator McCain, his advisers and Ms. Iseman plenty of time and opportunity to respond. We wrestled with some pretty tricky issues about how to handle what we learned. And we put it in the paper as soon as we could but no sooner.

Mr. Meyerhofer, thanks for the vote of confidence. You are in a minority in defending this story, but here in the foxhole we welcome your company. Would this story have broken somewhere else if we had not broken it? That's hard to say, but my guess is that some variation of it would have emerged. The Washington Post, which filed its own version this week after ours went up on our Web site, was clearly doing some similar reporting. Apparently The New Republic was considering writing an account of our work on the senator and the lobbyist even if we never published the result, so the story might have emerged there, in the guise of a media story. Who knows?

 Bill Keller

What Was McCain's Response?

Q. As the story was being prepared, but before it appeared, did The Times offer Senator McCain or his staff an opportunity to comment? If so, what was the response?

 Alan Bliss, Jacksonville Beach, Fla.

A. The reporting team had various conversations and e-mail exchanges with Senator McCain’s representatives throughout the process. The campaign denied several requests for interviews with the senator.

As the story noted, Mr. McCain contacted the newspaper once, calling Mr. Keller to complain about the reporters’ inquiries, in December. The first extensive interview between Mr. McCain’s representatives and the reporting team took place at the lobbying offices of Charles Black, a senior adviser to Mr. McCain, on Dec. 14. In that session, the New York Times reporters requested various documentation, including phone records, office schedules and airplane manifests dating to the 1990s. The reporters followed up with several questions about Ms. Iseman’s lobbying efforts before the senator and his committee. Mr. McCain’s aides agreed to provide as much of the requested information as possible, but noted that this would take some time (they ultimately said they could not locate some of the documentation). Three of the reporters also met with Mr. McCain’s attorney, Robert S. Bennett, at his offices later in December.

The exchange of questions and answers continued off and on until Wednesday, when the newspaper submitted another request for an interview with Senator McCain. That request was denied. And, through Mr. Black, Mr. McCain declined to comment on former associates’ accounts of meetings in which he was confronted with their concerns about his ties to Ms. Iseman.

The Times also made repeated efforts to seek Ms. Iseman's comments and responses to questions. Beginning in December, she answered some questions by e-mail, though she declined to speak to reporters on the phone. She again declined a phone interview the day of publication.