Where's McCain's "Base" Now?

McCain has joked about the media being his "base" and he's been given a pass on several gaffes, inconsistencies, and generalities by the press. But now the New York Times rejected McCain's op-ed responding to Obama's Iraq op-ed last week. The NYT wasn't satisfied with the content, it claims, because it didn't talk about definitions of "victory", troop levels, or "timetables." I'm not sure McCain can ever get his published in the NYT without it being viewed as capitulating. Also - why would the NYT do something dumb like this that will obviously reflect badly on them? They could have always just done its own editorial picking apart the op-ed if it wasn't up to snuff.