as you may or may not know, Ann Coulter's predictable calculated outrages in support of her latest direct-to-remainder rigorous political analysis, "Liberals are Fat and My Dad Makes More Money than Theirs," have been less successful than usual at commanding the attention of 'respectable' news organizations.

A seriously muddle-headed theological discussion about how much better christians are than jews on some random guy's show not having gotten the kind of play she was hoping for, Miss Ann bit the bullet and went on the Tucker Carlson show, where she announced to the six people watching that, based on an anonymously sourced story in the National Enquirer, presidential candidate John Edwards (who, famously, has a wife with incurable cancer and two young children) is having an affair.

You may recall that during her calculated outrage tour in support of her previous immediate conservative book club penny premium classic, "God Thinks Liberals Suck Because You Can See My Individual Thigh Bones," she announced repeatedly that Sen. Edwards is gay. Foolish consistency and all that.

AAR, this was a little too blatant for most, but Mickey Kaus, a long-time Coulter ally, picked it up in Slate and suggested that not disseminating a blind item from the National Enquirer about a man who is running for president with two young children whose wife has incurable cancer having an affair is a sign of preferential treatment, pointing out the firestorm of coverage which erupted over the Enquirer's stories about Laura Bush leaving her husband and moving into a hotel because he's drinking again.

As it turns out, Senator Edwards felt it was necessary to immediately deny the rumor, which as it turns out was wise. The first MSM mention was, predictably, on the wingnutariffic LA Times site, in a blog entry by Laura Bush's old press secretary, who feels defensive enough about, well, behaving like a spectacular scumbag, that he has felt it necessary to respond personally thus far to pretty much every comment condemning his paper for his spectacular scumbaggery.

One of his more notable defenses was this:

(Ans: While further independent reporting continued on the allegations by 2 reporters, we intended to ignore the story. But when the candidate himself stopped ignoring the story, we had to address it too.-AM)

Amazing. The administration's pet security service is in big trouble on the hill, the war is going very badly indeed, the housing bubble is shuddering ominously if it's still there at all, congress is debating retroactively immunizing everyone involved in the administration's illegal wiretapping, the president vetoes a very popular bill expanding health insurance for children (and a pack of online hyenas is sending death threats to a 12-year-old child, whose house Bill O'Reilly's favorite sub Michelle Malkin helpfully identified online), and Republican great white hope Fred Thompson has come out of the gate, finally, with a huge snore.

The LA Times has two political reporters assigned to a blind gossip item in the National Enquirer.

I have great respect for the practice of journalism. Does anyone want to argue that journalism is what's going on here?

edit: Mr. Malcolm, clearly every bit the gentleman of objective journalistic taste and refinement that his CV might indicate (real pack of ethical citizens that family hires), follows up with this response to a reader comment:

"(Ans: Not until the candidate himself addresses the National Enquirer story. If he's not ignoring it, we couldn't either.-AM)"

Of course you couldn't. You had to reprint every unsupported detail, word for word. A brief summary of the accusation just wouldn't do.

Give. Me. A. Break.

(Ans: And. You. Read. Every. Word.)

Got that? You're equally morally complicit. He may have made the decision to put an unsourced smear from the National Enquirer into the pages of the LA Times, but _you read it_

Hell, you practically asked for it.

Anyone with any principles would have stayed away from the LA Times if they knew who was running the place.

edit once more: Well, it appears that Mr. Malcolm doesn't exactly stand by his work. The entry has been deleted.