A Pulitzer for the Enquirer? Nah!

It seems in recent days that we’re reliving the fact that former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who had his own political aspirations to become president, is an adulturer.

His mistress became pregnant with his kid (a fact he now admits to). His wife has left him. As recently as Thursday, CNN got excited over the fact that there is an Edwards “sex tape” of him engaging in coitus with the woman who now is mother to his newest child.

WE HAVE HAD some self-righteous hissy fits from the editors of the National Enquirer claiming they ought to receive a Pulitzer Prize because (they claim) they were the first publication to put any effort into nailing down the story that Edwards was not someone who fit the stereotype of a dutiful family man.

The Enquirer does not expect to receive that Pulitzer. Their fits are more along the line of trying to stir up resentment against an establishment that will not recognize them for their achievement.

So part of what I’m trying to accomplish with this particular commentary is to knock back any attempt to stir up resentment. Because as far as I’m concerned, I don’t care about this story anymore.

Not that I ever really cared about it, since it was clear early on in the 2008 election cycle that Edwards was going to be a long-shot for those presidential aspirations. How many people seriously remember anything from that year other than the Obama/Clinton brawls that resulted? Personally, Bill Richardson’s lame presidential campaign made more of an impression on me than did Edwards.

CONSIDERING THAT EDWARDS is no longer a public official, I don’t care about hearing continued details. At least not in any sense that those details are informing us for the good of the public.

This has devolved down to the level of tawdry trash. And while the reporter-type person in me appreciates fully that tawdry trash can be news and does help to provide offbeat, interesting copy, the trick is to keep in mind that it ultimately is secondary.

It should not be allowed to prevail in a news report – which ultimately is the problem with many news reports of the early 21st Century.

It’s not a liberal news media. It’s a trivial news media. The more pointless a story is (it seems at times), the bigger play it will get.

SO I WOULD hope that most people would have enough sense to realize that the National Enquirer’s rants about not being taken seriously for a Pulitzer Prize are little more than self-serving rants. An egomaniac who is upset because the people around him have enough sense to ignore him.

Now I know that some people are going to argue that the fact Edwards was once a presidential aspirant who liked to play around sexually is a sign of a character flaw – something that the public ought to have known about before his name could appear on a presidential ballot (he got as close as being John Kerry’s running mate in 2004).

Some others will claim that such sexual daliances rise to the level of corruption if the public official uses the perks of his public position to help promote his affairs (the mistress gets a government job or the official uses government funds meant for legitimate travel expenses to pay for trips that turn into sex romps).

I sort of agree with the latter, but think the people who peddle the former theory are usually talking a load of trash they really don’t agree with.

BECAUSE MANY PEOPLE, when they read or hear these “sex affair” stories, don’t really get worked up over such esoteric concepts. They just want to see pictures of the “other woman,” usually so they can make some judgment call (some thought along the line of, “he cheated on his wife for that skank?”) about the official.

The thought of a “sex” tape feeds into the thought that what matters about such incidents is the tawdryness of the moment. Just think of how absurd the situation would have become in 1998 if we had learned of a videotape involving then-President Clinton and intern Monica Lewinsky.

At least when I heard of the Edwards sex tape on Thursday, it was on CNN Headline News’ “Showbiz Tonight,” which struck me as an appropriate place for the story (which turns out to be that someone found the tape in the trash broken into pieces, but managed to put it back together).

It fit in with all the other trivial celebrity tidbits that really don’t amount to much (and half the time aren’t even really interesting, I don’t care about anything related to Kim Kardashian or her family). I don’t see anybody suggesting that CNN get a Peabody award for their Edwards work.

THE NEWS PROFESSIONAL in me realizes that whoever does wind up winning a Pulitzer Prize when those awards for the news business are announced in April at Columbia University will have done so for a story that is of far more significance to the public than whether Edwards violated his marriage vows (which is a fact that is only relevant to his now ex-wife Elizabeth).

There’s also the fact that a North Carolina television station likes to claim it is the one that “broke” the story that Edwards was not fully faithful in his marriage. I’m not going to get into a debate over who deserves credit for “breaking” this story. The Enquirer may very well deserve full credit for this.

But at a time when we have serious economic troubles and have to wonder how much the partisan political infighting between Barack Obama’s supporters and opponents in Congress will delay the finding of a solution, there are more important issues to worry about than an affair.

For those people who would claim otherwise, I’d argue they are a significant part of the problem with our society.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Some people are misguided enough to see a significance to the work of the National Enquirer (http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/01/09/does-the-national-enquirer-deserve-a-pulitzer-for-breaking-the-j/) when it comes to the behavior of John Edwards.

WRAL-TV in Raleigh, N.C., is claiming a significant “scoop” because they say they were the first to report that Edwards (http://www.wral.com/news/local/politics/story/5791651/) was about to admit paternity of a child out of marriage.

Adultery! Lesbians! Tawdry sex! Oh wait, this is the Dem presidential campaign

What do Patrick Swayze and Tom Cruise have in common these days?

Both of the Hollywood celebs likely would have been the cover boys of the supermarket tabloids this week, if not for the ongoing antics of the Democratic presidential campaign.

THAT’S RIGHT. BARACK Obama and Hillary Clinton both managed to knock Swayze and Cruise off of the main story on page one, and up into a little box that tells people they have to go inside to find out more about Swayze’s loss of his wife and Cruise’s religion that allegedly brainwashes people.

Of course, nobody who reads the National Enquirer or Globe magazine really cares all that much about what the candidates think of the North American Free Trade Agreement or how the two think they can provide adequate healthcare for all U.S. residents.

It took titillating tales of tawdry sex to get either of those publications the least bit interested in the political brawl that will come to a head the end of August in Denver.

Hence, when I went to the supermarket on Sunday to pick up a few stray items, I got to see the new front pages of the issues dated May 5, 2008, which want us to respond to headlines of “OBAMA MARRIAGE EXPLODES: Wife confronts him with cheating” and “HILLARY GAY LOVE SCANDAL.”

NOW BEFORE YOU read any further, the answer is, “no.”

I did not plunk down my money for either publication, although I did "throw down" $5 for a New York Times. I didn’t read the Enquirer or Globe stories, so I don’t know exactly what the substance of their allegations are for either candidate.

For those of you who are now determined to use the Internet to check it out for free, it won’t work. The Globe merely put a three-sentence synopsis of their story on their web site, which told me enough in and of itself that the story in print is likely a load of trash meant to spew the view that Hillary is not a respectable person by the viewpoint of certain social conservative elements.

The brief seemed to make much of the fact that the so-called lover is a Muslim, albeit one born in the United States. I would guess the people who fed this story to the Globe are the same types who continuously let us know that Obama’s middle name is Hussein. They want us to think the only way we can get a “real American” in the White House is to vote for John McCain, since their preferred candidate, Mike Huckabee, couldn’t even last through the primary season.

BESIDES, THE STORIES of Hillary Clinton’s sexual orientation have always been spewed in political circles, usually from people of the conservative viewpoint that a real woman would be content to stay at home in a supportive role of her husband.

In fact, at one point or another, I have heard people try to convince me that just about every woman in politics is gay. The charge itself has little credibility, or relevance.

The Enquirer didn’t even go so far as to put their Obama story on their website. Anybody who goes there is going to get big pictures of Jennifer Aniston looking as adorable as ever, while also getting to read the latest trivial details about Jimmy Fallon and Orenthal J. Simpson.

So I don’t know the specifics about Obama’s alleged infidelity, although it would not surprise me to learn that it is some insignificant tidbit being distorted into a “shocking scandal.”

When it comes to political people and infidelity, I have been around enough to know that it happens. But I also know that some people don’t have it in their mental makeup to engage in adultery, and I don’t believe the percentage of philanderers is any higher among politicians than it is any other type of professional person.

I ALSO REMEMBER from my days covering the Illinois Statehouse scene that there were certain political people that I know for a fact were having sex outside of marriage, or were engaging in intercourse with whoever happened to be available that night.

But the one legislator who I know for a fact was a skirt-chaser (he’s no longer in the Legislature, but is still in politics) gets a break from me because he was not married at the time. Insofar as I know, his days of hooking up with cocktail waitresses and legislative aides (all of whom were of legal age) ended when he got married.

Obama was not among those with a reputation for having a “Springfield wife” (the modern-day Statehouse phrase for having a girlfriend in the capital city and a wife back home). In fact, the closest thing I remember to a sordid detail about Obama from back then was that he liked to play poker.

In fact, it was those late-night poker games with his fellow legislators that enabled him to develop ties to both Democrats and Republicans, including Kirk Dillard, the one-time aide to GOP governors James R. Thompson and Jim Edgar who now has many Republicans offended because of his outspoken support of Obama.

SO IF THE Enquirer had come up with a story that claimed Obama to be a degenerate gambler who owed thousands of dollars in debts, perhaps some to lobbyists and other interests that might then pressure him as president to commit certain acts of favoritism – that story I would have an easier time believing than one that Obama is committing adultery.

But even so, a claim of adultery really isn’t of much concern to anyone – except Michelle Obama. I’m willing to trust her reaction to this whole situation in determining just how seriously (if at all) I should take this story.

In one respect, we ought to consider ourselves lucky. It took until May of a campaign election season for the supermarket tabloids to get themselves involved in peddling salacious details of the presidential candidates.

As I recall, it was late February of 1992 when the Star was fed by conservative operatives recordings off of Gennifer Flowers’ answering machine to imply that the two were having a long-standing sexual affair.

EVER SINCE THEN, the supermarket rags (even though the Tommy Lee Jones character in the film “Men in Black” told us that they provide “the best investigative reporting on the planet”) have taken to trying to come up with titillating details about the politicos.

What interests me the most about this twin-billing of “political” reporting is that it would appear the rags are taking on a partisan tone.

Is the National Enquirer now the paper out to get the Obama campaign? Should Barack backers take to reading the Globe for their load of celebrity gossip? It was earlier this year that the Enquirer ran the story, “Obama’s secrets. His close friendship with terrorist.”

What it was, was the Enquirer telling us about Obama’s Hyde Park neighbor, Bill Ayers. I don’t know that “close friendship” is the most accurate description of their tie. It wasn’t a secret. And the only people who absolutely insist on pushing the “terrorist” label (“idiotic” is more accurate) to Ayers are the ones who just can’t stand that history has shown the anti-war crowd to be correct in its view about the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

THE OTHER ASPECT of these stories that intrigues me is their lack of inclusion for John McCain.

McCain fans will claim it is because their guy is “too respectable” to do anything that would draw the attention of the supermarket rags.

I’d argue it is because his campaign is too uninteresting to gain their attention, and their editors realize that putting a McCain story on Page One (it doesn’t have to be true, or even based in reality) would flop in sales at the supermarket newsracks across the nation.

That lack of interest from anyone beyond the hard-core partisans who would vote for anyone bearing the “R” (for Republican) after his name is why the winner of Obama/Clinton has to be considered the favorite to win come Nov. 4 – regardless of how badly they bloody each other up in the primary season.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Gennifer Flowers (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22146031/) may cast her vote for Hillary Clinton, even though she too has peddled the stories about Clinton’s (http://bigheaddc.com/2007/11/03/flashback-gennifer-flowers-always-said-hillary-was-gay/) sexual orientation.

Here is the Globe’s summary (http://www.globemagazine.com/story/172) about their paper’s attempt to put themselves into the history of Campaign ’08.