New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt takes his paper to task for its original John McCain story as well as the Friday follow-up.

Hoyt concludes that the newspaper didn’t have enough to report that top McCain aides had become “convinced” the senator’s was having an intimate relationship with a lobbyist, that they story did need that angle to make its points and that including it had invited distraction from what was otherwise “a good story.”

Hoyt, the newspaper’s ombudsman, noted that reader response to the original article had been “explosive,” with more than 2,400 comments on nytimes.com.

Hoyt addresses all the key objections that have been raised.

• On whether the sex angle was even necessary:

I asked Jill Abramson, the managing editor for news, if The Times could have done the story and left out the allegation about an affair. “That would not have reflected the essential truth of why the aides were alarmed,” she said.

But what the aides believed might not have been the real truth. And if you cannot provide readers with some independent evidence, I think it is wrong to report the suppositions or concerns of anonymous aides about whether the boss is getting into the wrong bed.

• On how the paper was convinced that its anonymous sources were convinced of romantic connection:

The article was notable for what it did not say: It did not say what convinced the advisers that there was a romance. It did not make clear what McCain was admitting when he acknowledged behaving inappropriately — an affair or just an association with a lobbyist that could look bad. And it did not say whether Weaver, the only on-the-record source, believed there was a romance. The Times did not offer independent proof, like the text messages between Detroit’s mayor and a female aide that The Detroit Free Press disclosed recently, or the photograph of Donna Rice sitting on Gary Hart’s lap.

• On second-day reporting about the sex charge:

In a follow-up article on Friday, the newspaper even seemed to play down its role in the sex angle. It described the previous day’s article as talking about McCain’s “ties” to Iseman and his “association” with her. The only mention of romance came in quoting a question to McCain at his press conference.

Full piece here.