Mediaocre

On a daily basis, big media resolutely fails to pull back the curtain on the great and powerful Oz. The alleged Nikki Haley affair is a case of our credulous media's eagerness to accept bullshit with a bow on it as if it came from Tiffany's.

Will Folks is not a blogger. He is a political consultant who runs a rightwing news site. In any case, calling him a blogger (big-media-speak for pipsqueak upstart, by the way) is not informative. Doesn't everyone have a blog by now?

Folks is also not credible as a supporter of Nikki Haley. Nonetheless, the press dutifully prints his claim in every story. When he says he outed his alleged affair with Haley as a proactive step because the story was being shopped to the media, he can't possibly be credible. If he were really to try "getting ahead of the story," he wouldn't milk it for daily attention with promises of proof and death-of-a-thousand cuts delivery.

Folks has also claimed that he went public to protect the wife he married after the alleged affair. Surely someone in the editorial chain is married or has had an intimate relationship. "Honey, I had an affair with someone before we married, and I'm going to publicize it to protect you." Look, this is bullshit so runny you couldn't even tie a bow on it without first injecting drilling mud and huge amounts of concrete.

I have no idea whether Folks and Haley had sex. In fact, I have no idea what Folks is claiming and Haley is denying.

He says they had an "inappropriate physical relationship." Did she hug him a little too long? Did she spank him like a bad boy? Did he massage her feet with peppermint cream?

She denies having an affair. Well, what does she mean? Would it be o.k. if they necked a little but never did it? I'm sure her husband wouldn't approve, but would such a small dalliance count?

If they weren't both in the anti-sex base of the anti-sex party, I wouldn't care what they did. But I'd still care that the media is less concerned about finding out what's true than it is about repeating what everyone says and then shrugging - with both shoulders for balance.

We Americans have a political culture that seldom rises above the throes of puberty. Part of the reason why is that our media culture is about putting a bow on gossip and calling it news.