Posted on 10/30/2007 6:09:13 PM PDT by jimboster
So I was down in DC this past weekend and happened to run into a well-connected media person, who told me flatly, unequivocally that “everyone knows” The LA Times was sitting on a story, all wrapped up and ready to go about what is a potentially devastating sexual scandal involving a leading Presidential candidate. “Everyone knows” meaning everyone in the DC mainstream media political reporting world. “Sitting on it” because the paper couldn’t decide the complex ethics of whether and when to run it. The way I heard it they’d had it for a while but don’t know what to do. The person who told me )not an LAT person) knows I write and didn’t say “don’t write about this”.
If it’s true, I don’t envy the LAT. I respect their hesitation, their dilemma, deciding to run or not to run it raises a lot of difficult journalism ethics questions and they’re likely to be attacked, when it comes out—the story or their suppression of the story—whatever they do.
I’ve been sensing hints that something’s going on, something’s going unspoken in certain insider coverage of the campaign (and by the way this rumor the LA Times is supposedly sitting on is one I never heard in this specific form before. By the way, t’s not the Edwards rumor, it’s something else.
And when my source said “everyone in Washington”, knows about it he means everyone in the elite Mainstream media, not just the LA Times, but everyone regularly writing about the Presdidential campaign knows about it and doesn’t know what to do with it. And I must admit it really is was juicy if true. But I don’t know if it’s true and I can’t decide if I think it’s relevant. But the fact that “everyone” in the elite media knew about it and was keeping silent about it, is, itself, news. But you can’t report the “news” without reporting the thing itself. Troubling!
It raises all sorts of ethical questions. What about private sexual behavior is relevant? What about a marriage belongs in the coverage of a presidential campaign? Does it go to the judgment of the candidate in question? Didn’t we all have a national nervous breakdown over these questions nearly a decade ago?
Now, as I say it’s a rumor; I haven’t seen the supporting evidence. But the person who told me said it offhandedly as if everyone in his world knew about it. And if you look close enough you can find hints of something impending, something potentially derailing to this candidate in the reporting of the campaign. Which could mean that something unspoken, unwritten about is influencing what is written, what we read.
Why are well wired media elite keeping silent about it? Because they think we can’t handle the truth? Because they think it’s substantively irrelevant? What standards of judgment are they using? Are they afraid that to print it will bring on opprobrium. Are they afraid not printing it will bring on opprobrium? Or both?
But alas if it leaks out from less “responsible” sources. then all their contextual protectiveness of us will have been wasted.
And what about timing? They, meaning the DC elite media, must know if it comes out before the parties select their primary winners and eventual nominees, voters would have the ability to decide how important they felt it to the narrative of the candidate in question. Aren’t they, in delaying and not letting the pieces fall where they potentially may, not refusing to act but acting in a different way—taking it upon themselves to decide the Presidential election by their silence?
If they waited until the nominees were chosen wouldn’t that be unfair because, arguably, it could sink the candidacy of one of the potential nominees after the nomination was finalized? And doesn’t the fact that they “all” know something’s there but can’t say affect their campaign coverage in a subterranean, subconscious way that their readers are excluded from?
I just don’t know the answer. I’m glad in a situation like this, if there is in fact truth to it, that I wouldn’t have to be the “decider”. I wouldn’t want to be in a position of having to make that choice. But it’s a choice that may well decide a crucial turning point in history. Or maybe not: Maybe voters will decide they don’t think it’s important, however juicy. But should it be their choice or the choice of the media elites? It illustrates the fact that there are still two cultures at war within our political culture, insiders and outsiders. As a relative outsider I have to admit I was shocked not just by this but by several other things “everyone” down there knows.
There seem to be two conflicting imperatives here. The new media, Web 2.0 anti-elitist preference for transparency and immediacy and the traditional elitist preference for reflection, judgment and standards—their reflection, their small-group judgment and standards. Their civic duty to “protect” us from knowing too much.
I feel a little uneasy reporting this. No matter how well “nailed” they think they have it, it may turn out to be untrue. What I’m really reporting on is the unreported persistence of a schism between the DC media elites and their inside knowlede and the public that is kept in the dark. For their own good? Maybe they’d dismiss it as irrelevant, but shouldn’t they know?
I don’t know.
Colonel Mustard in the Library with the Candle Stick.
I don’t know.
No kidding. Come back when you have something to tell us.
I was going to say Obama too, but you really can’t know. If Obama had an affair with someone, would that turn off his base? Probably not.
If Romney had an affair, then yes, that would turn off his base.
Or if Rudy turned out to be a man...
If true, it must be a Dem. The left wing media would not hesitate to expose a Repub.
It’s an outside shot. It may not be Obama at all, we don’t know what the scandal is, and we don’t know if this reporter is telling the truth about the LAT story.
I heard from my sister’s neighbor’s cousin’s nephew that Hillary is really Gore in drag.
The irony, which no one seems to notice, is that it was also the LA Times which sat on the big Clinton scandal (can’t recall if it was Monica or Gennifer or Troopergate) long enough for Drudge to finally scoop them. IIRC
Kucinich’s wife (the tall funny looking one in the picture, not the short funny looking one) is a cross dresser?
Presidential candidate John Edwards is caught in a shocking mistress scandal that could wreck his campaign, The NATIONAL ENQUIRER has learned exclusively.Sources have come forward to charge that the "other woman" previously worked on Edwards' campaign and followed the 54-year-old candidate on trips across the U.S.
A source close to the woman, whose name is being withheld by The NATIONAL ENQUIRER, says that she confessed to having an affair in phone calls and emails, saying that her work with Edwards soon exploded into romance. The shocking allegation — if proven true — could devastate the Democratic hopeful's campaign, especially because John's devoted wife Elizabeth is locked in a desperate battle with breast cancer.
"The affair started about 18 months ago," a friend says the woman confessed to her. "When they met at a bar, sparks flew immediately.
"She never expected it would turn sexual since John is married and is running for President. But it soon did — and she fell for him."
In one bombshell e-mail message provided to The NATIONAL ENQUIRER, the woman confesses to a friend she's "in love with John," but it's "difficult because he is married and has kids."
In another e-mail, she writes: "Last night and this a.m., he actually has amazed me. He is a great man. My heart is loud and my head is silenced."
Disclosed her friend: "She initially confided in a few of her closest pals that she was sleeping with 'a married man named John.'
"It became clear the married man was John Edwards. They got together whenever they could, mostly at hotels where Edwards and his campaign staff stayed."
The woman later spelled it out in a phone call to her pal and talked openly about having an affair with Edwards.
The friend says the woman told her that she "had a crush on John. One thing led to another, and they soon ended up in bed together. But she knew there was no way he was going to leave Elizabeth, a wife battling cancer."
The ex-Senator's wife was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004. This past March, the couple announced her cancer had returned, but said his campaign would continue.
His spokesman said that allegations Edwards had an affair are "false, absolute nonsense."
The woman's friend told The NATIONAL ENQUIRER: "As the affair went on, she said that both she and John began to feel real guilty and they decided to end it."
The ENQUIRER made exhaustive but unsuccessful attempts to reach the woman for comment regarding this article but she would not return phone calls or emails or come to the door of the house where she is staying.
The Left considers Rudy the Pubbie they like the most. Hillery having a Lesbian affair would not necessarily sink her. The Dem voting public might even approve of her more. I'd guess its Rudy. If Rudy drops out, the Republican primary process finishes earlier, leaving the winner with more time and funds to attack Hillery
It’s Obama. The dirty secret is that he isn’t really black. He just spends more time than necessarily at the tanning salon.
His cover was blown one night when he was spotted at a Barry Manilow concert actually enjoying the music.
That only fits if you consider Dennis to be a “leading candidate”.
If it were any of the Republican candidates it would already be front page news. Since we can all assume its a democrat, my guess its Obama. Ah the truth in media, don’t you just love em!
Laughable melodrama. As if he or anyone in the MSM had even one scruple.
The article says that it’s not the Edwards thing.
bttt
Hmmm... well the gossip blogs posted a blind item about a current presidential candidate coming home to find his wife in bed with a top staffer from his own campaign. I voted Rudy. :)
Some of those ol gals who said he was "considerate" might be good candidates for some followup interviews to see if that's what he does.
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