Doug, you continue to reinforce my point and allow me further opportunities to provide you merriment. This isn’t about the National Enquirer. It’s about the mainstream media and their selective and biased coverage.
The facts:
National Enquirer runs the full story when others wouldn't. That's agreed.
They are simply a supermarket tabloid and yet they had photos and e-mails on Mr. Edwards illicit relationship that were irrefutable . (It was Mr. Clinton and Monica’s stained blue dress all over again. Had she not saved the dress, he never would have been impeached.)
So neither the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, nor even the LA Times, on whose patch the whole sordid business occurred, chose to initially report it but instead activily supressed it (as did the Journolist group about Jerimiah Right’s rantings and their potential impact on Mr. Obama’s campaign). On 25 July, Mickey Kaus at Slate published a 24 July e-mail from Tony Pierce, an editor at the Los Angeles Time, to the Times in-house bloggers, which referred to the Edwards allegations and said "...I am asking you all not to blog about this topic until further notified." Kaus portrayed the e-mail as a "gag" order. Again, this story was not just an under-reported story, it was suppressed. Their old-fashioned reticence seems quaint, given their open season on Ms. Palin and her family. But it's also depressing: one of the reasons America's newspapers are dying and mainstream media’s viewership is in the tank is their perceived pomposity (see Keith Obermann). Readers say they are too timid to rock the boat; right-wingers complain (with some justification) that they conspire to suppress damaging stories about Democrats. Birds of a feather: you obscure the fact that the Edwards story was true and goes to the character of someone aspiring to the highest office professing is undying love for his cancer stricken wife. It is also a fact that Fox, was the only TV network to report it. In ignoring the affair, the media repeats the mistakes of the 1990s, where they loftily decided against reporting Bill Clinton's many bedroom misdeeds, allowing internet sites to claim the Monica Lewinsky "scoop." (How many know he settled with Paula Jones for $850,000?). The facts also bear out that Mr. Edwards is truly a despicable human being so unfit for office that in August 2006 several staffers (Josh Brumberger, Kim Rubey, and David Ginsberg) had strong suspicions about the affair (which had according to testomonly begun early that year) and left the campaign over concerns about Rielle Hunter, Mr. Edwards liason. Rubey and Ginsberg later discussed their obligation to the party to come forward with what they knew after finding Andrew Young's paternity claim for Ms. Hunters child unconvincing. A federal grand jury is investigating whether any Edwards campaign funds were misspent on covering up the affair.
But as the apologists for Mr. Clinton continue to profess, sex and lies don’t really matter. Would it matter if it were George Bush or Mr. Obama???
Take for example CBS (re-read my quote from Bob Schieffer indicating CBS was not going to pursue the Edwards story). You indicate “ there is a fine line between running a story too quickly (before it is properly (sic) validated) and running one too late, the reputable major news networks are constantly attempting to be the first to run a story, but "reputable" and "responsible" can be used interchangeably(sic) here”.
On July 12, 2001, Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center cited the failure of CBS News to run a single story regarding the disappearance of former Congressional intern Chandra Levy was evidence of "media bias". According to Bill Press, Dan Rather of CBS chose to avoid covering the Levy story because he preferred what he called "decent, responsible journalism". CBS News eventually ran a single story about the Levy disappearance the following week. Had the Congressman been Republican would there have been the same reticence?
Did you feel the same way when the very same, reputable-and-responsible-to-wait CBS ran on September 8, 2004, (Dan Rather reported 60 Minutes) that a series of memos critical of President George W. Bush's Texas Air National Guard service record had been discovered in the personal files of Lt. Bush's former commanding officer, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian? The authenticity of these documents was quickly called into question. This led to evidence that the memos were forgeries. The forgery accusations then spread over the following days into mainstream media outlets including The Washington Post, New York Times and the Chicago Sun-Times. Mr. Rather and CBS initially defended the story, insisting that the documents had been authenticated by experts. CBS was immediately contradicted by some of the experts it originally cited. CBS later reported that their source for the documents, former Texas Army National Guard officer Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, had misled the network about how he had obtained them. So it would appear that the “wait to authenticate” only would apply to Democrats but not Republicans.
The whole sorted mess was best summed up by CBS executive Leslie Moonves, "The bottom line is that much of the Sept. 8 broadcast was wrong, incomplete or unfair."
At least they admit it.
As repugnant as the National Enquirer may be, they have a successful track record of remarkable outing of political cads in a non-partisan manner. The Enquirer has been reliable in regards to scandal reporting, noting their reporting on Republican Larry Craig, Gary Hart/Donna Rice affair, the O. J. Simpson murder case, Jesse Jackson 's out-of-wedlock child, and Rush Limbaugh's prescription drug addiction. Several pundits stated that Edwards was "fair game" for reporting on the allegations, because he had been identified as a potential candidate for Vice President or Attorney General for Mr. Obama, and that Edwards himself had made his marital fidelity an issue in his campaign.
David Carr, news media communist for The New York Times wrote in 2008 that while The National Enquirer can be inaccurate, it’s revelations about the Edwards affair were a service to the public.
There are some stories, especially ones that occur in the bedroom, where mainstream media outlets sometimes can’t venture — or at least they can’t find it in themselves to lead the charge. But it would be hard to argue that the body politic is not enriched by the recent revelations that Mr. Edwards is not who we thought he was, even balanced against the many stories the Enquirer gets wrong. (Even in his confession, Mr. Edwards wrinkled his nose and suggested that the allegations had originated with "supermarket tabloids", as if the method of conveyance absolved him of the deeds described.)
Doug, you want to mock me, Fox news, and others that are more conservative, that’s certainly your prerogative but apparently you are willing to do so to obscure the truth.
What ever happened to the Bat Boy anyway?
