Good Thursday morning. One hundred twenty three years ago, the Washington Monument was dedicated here in Washington, while eighty-three years ago the New Yorker published its first issue. On a day that promises to be memorable in the 2008 campaign, here's what Washington is watching:

-- The House and Senate remain on recess until next week. The Senate Judiciary Committee is meeting, however, to decide the fates of three judicial nominees, while the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee takes up the touchy subject of the census. President Bush and his wife are in Monrovia, Liberia, to meet with President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the last leg of his Africa tour.

-- But all eyes this morning are on John McCain, thanks to a New York Times article that is either a devastating bombshell or a hack of a hit job, depending on one's point of view. The story, describing anxiety among senior advisers over McCain's association with a lobbyist, has been ready to go for months, though the Times only now published it after holding the piece in December, a move that cause one of the story's authors to decamp to the Washington Post in protest. The McCain campaign was ready with a response, calling the story a "hit-and-run smear campaign." "He has never violated the public trust, never done favors for special interests or lobbyists, and he will not allow a smear campaign to distract from the issues at stake in this election," communications director Jill Hazelbaker said.

-- McCain's time as head of the Senate Commerce Committee is the story's cornerstone. If a lobbyist, any lobbyist, were to spend parts of 1999 and 2000 bragging about their access to a candidate whose message was as anti-lobbyist as possible, that would create appearance problems. The Washington Post, in their version of the story, relies more heavily on lobbyist Vicki Iseman's relationship with the campaign and the official office than with the Senator himself. Both pieces point to a meeting that took place at a cafe, centrally located in Union Station, one of the busiest locations in Washington, between Iseman and top McCain adviser John Weaver, at which Weaver said he told her to get lost, fearing the association between the two could trip up McCain's outsider message.

-- The campaign is not happy with the Times. McCain himself talked about the story with NYT chief Bill Keller. Still, when the Old Gray Lady published their story, tempers flared. Citing two blind quotes within the story, Salter said the reporting was beneath the Times. "Are these the standards of the New York Times? No. They are the standards of the National Enquirer," he told Time Magazine's Ana Marie Cox.

-- Adding more intrigue: "They did this because the The New Republic was going to run a story that looked back at the infighting there," Salter continued. "They decided that they would rather smear McCain than suffer a story that made the New York Times newsroom look bad." The New Republic admitted later that one of their writers is, in fact, working on a story about the Times' decision to spike the McCain piece in December.

-- As funny as it sounds, could a story like this, handled by the Times the way it was, actually be good for John McCain? Conservative columnist Mary Katharine Ham writes that a Times hit-job is the best way to get conservatives to rally around McCain, and others are focusing their vitriol on the newspaper, not their candidate. McCain, who will hold a press conference in Toledo this morning just as this piece is being published at 9 a.m. (turn on your television, it will be hard to miss), refused to comment last night, but while it will cause some headaches in the short run, conservatives could take this to mean the Arizonan is one of them.

-- Finally, the article also delved into McCain's involvement in the Keating Five scandal in the 1980s. After benefiting for years from wealthy Phoenix developer Charles Keating, McCain was criticized for questionable conduct by the Senate Ethics Committee along with three others. The scandal has played a central role in McCain's public career, not for any stain on his record but for the inspiration it gave McCain to work toward campaign finance reform. No one lost their seat because of Keating Five, but only McCain and former Ohio Senator John Glenn won re-election after the Ethics Committee spoke. Still, it's a scandal with a name everyone knows. Will the eventual Democratic nominee remind voters in the heat of a debate that McCain's name is associated with it? That might be one way to bring out the Copper Stater's legendary temper.

-- The McCain story has overshadowed virtually everything else this morning, but by tonight it will be reduced to a second-tier item. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama head to Austin, Texas today for one of two debates before four states vote on March 4, and the Austin American-Statesman is psyched. Clinton, trailing in momentum and delegates as she goes into the crucial contests, needs a big showing today, the Wall Street Journal writes, but how to take on Obama is another question altogether.

-- The disagreements are, not surprisingly at all, between media adviser Mandy Grunwald, who thinks aggression looks like desperation, and pollster Mark Penn, who wants more contrasts drawn, Adam Nagourney writes. If the Clinton campaign does not succeed in capturing the Democratic nomination, the narrative of the obituary could be all about the feud between these two Democratic heavyweights. So far, though, it looks like Penn is winning, as Clinton is just spending more time beating on her rival, the Post writes.

-- How crucial are upcoming debates? Clinton's poll numbers in Texas and Ohio are already slipping, and according to the strategist closest to the candidate, she's got to hold on for big wins. "You probably like it that this election has come down to Texas and Ohio. If she wins Texas and Ohio I think she will be the nominee. If you don't deliver for her, I don't think she can be. It's all on you," Bill Clinton told a crowd in Beaumont, Texas, according to ABC News. When the spouse sets the bar that high, backs really must be against the wall.

-- Good Fortune Of The Day: Imagine if the Times story were enough to bring McCain down. Noam Scheiber, of TNR, has a good series of connected dots: Blaire Hull. Jack Ryan. McCain. Scheiber's point: "Is it possible that Obama's the luckiest man in the history of civilization?"

-- Today On The Trail: Clinton heads to an event with early voters in Laredo before joining Obama at a debate, sponsored by CNN and Univision, in Austin. Mike Huckabee, who is still in the race, rallies in Houston before attending a fundraiser, then visits the Alamo before rallying at St. Mary's University in San Antonio. McCain has his 9 a.m. presser in Toledo before meeting voters in Perrysburg and attending a fundraiser. Later today he heads to a Ford assembly plant in Wayne, Michigan, just outside Detroit. He has a fundraiser scheduled for that city as well before overnighting in Indianapolis.