I am not interested in John Edwards' whereabouts at 2:40 a.m. I would not chase him into a bathroom to uncover his reasons for being in a hotel with a woman rumored to be his mistress and a child rumored to be his spawn. I don't blame the mainstream media for not conducting an in-depth investigation into Edwards's affairs. I do blame them for employing another standard when the politician in question is John McCain. In February, The New York Times ran a trashy story implying that John McCain was having an affair with a lobbyist. Now that the subject of a trashy inquiry is a Democrat instead of a Republican, the Times balks at even mentioning it within its pages. The Los Angeles Times has even enforced a blackout on the story among its bloggers. Politics rather than ethics explains the holier-than-thou stance on the Edwards story.

The fact that the National Enquirer apparently caught John Edwards meeting with his mistress/baby mamma as his wife suffered from cancer back in North Carolina merely confirms what most people sensed all along: John Edwards is a cad. It's a National Enquirer story because of the seediness involved, but, increasingly, other news outlets resemble the National Enquirer. It's just that they do so selectively. The supermarket checkout line has drifted to the newsstand. That serious news outlets devote time to Britney and KFed, Madonna and Guy, and Angelina'a babies demonstrates this. Get a life, losers. Stop vicariously living someone else's.

There are two rules in media. 1. All cable television networks not explicitly anti-E! Channel will become the E! Channel. All news outlets not committed to not being the National Enquirer will become the National Enquirer.

Political coverage has become like a high school gossip session. Talking heads inform us of who is popular and who isn't by constant reference to polls. Another favorite pastime, of high school girls and cable news anchormen, is who is hooking up with who: Bill and Monica, Gary and Donna, Elliot and Ashley. Speculating on another's finances, personal and campaign--who's rich, who's poor--is another obsession. Lost amid it all is the all-important discussion of the candidates' issues and ideas.

If you wonder why the throngs react to a politician as though he were a rock star, watch how political coverage has taken celebrity coverage as its model and it all begins to make sense.

What would you expect from a publication that goes by “All the news fit to print”? And they decide what is and what is not fit to print. Nobody believes the Times anymore and their circulation and the fact that they’re bleeding massive amounts of money proves it.

And I’m not a Dan Flynn stalker but every time I turn on a talk show these days I hear him. Apparently, ACHOTAL has hit a nerve with the talk radio guys.

Graham this morning was good.