Edwards, McCain, Clinton bombshells (or attempts at same)

Press coverage of the presidential campaign fell under embarrassing scrutiny when it turned out to have varying standards about possible scandals amidst the Republicans and Democrats depending on whether it liked the potential victims more or less than their rivals.

In August came the bombshell disclosure that John Edwards had engaged in an extramarital affair with a 44-year-old film producer, upon whom his campaign lavished large sums of money to produce web videos.

Edwards attempted to lessen the impact during his confession to ABC News by pointing out that his caper took place while wife Elizabeth's well-publicized battle against cancer was in remission (the cancer has since returned).

Though he had dropped out of the race in January, he was considered a very possible VP choice for Obama or in the mix for attorney general. Of course, he had been Kerry's running mate in 2004.

The media aspect of this loomed prominently as the National Enquirer ... which had assigned seven full-time reporters to the case over a seven-month period ... was the only well-known publication doing any coverage. In particular, it had a story in December 2007 saying the woman was pregnant (Edwards denies being the father) and another in July 2008 saying it had caught him visiting her at a hotel in Beverly Hills.

Edwards had called the Enquirer's reports "tabloid trash" and the mainstream media seemed to agree as they assiduously avoided the topic until too much pressure built up. Why, critics asked, was the press covering up on charges that turned out to be true against Edwards, a Democrat, when it had no problem publishing a similar charge against McCain, a Republican, that has not even come close to being proven?

On Feb. 21, the New York Times had unveiled the most controversial piece of the campaign, if not the most infamous ... its attempt at an expose on McCain, hinting and suggesting without actually saying so that he had engaged in an affair with a female lobbyist 31 years his junior. A team of reporters toiled for months and failed to come up with a smoking gun, much less a water pistol, but their story ran anyway. It drew comments from 2,400 readers on the paper's web site, most of them negative.

The Times' own reader representative, Clark Hoyt, seemed dismayed by the story, noting that "although it raised one of the most toxic subjects in politics — sex — it offered readers no proof that McCain and (the woman) had a romance."

P.S. The ultimate insult to the Times was delivered in mid-August when National Enquirer editor David Perel, in an interview with the New Republic, said, "I wouldn't have run that piece, there was nothing in it. It was filled with innuendo ... When you're done reading it, you're like, there's no there there."

In other words, the article wasn't good enough even for a supermarket tabloid the Times normally looks down its nose at.

Turns out five Enquirer reporters spent more than a month in 2007 chasing down the rumors on McCain but couldn't find any substantiation.

Toward the end of the primaries, Sen. Clinton's husband, who played an active role in her campaign, found out the hard way that what the NYT did to McCain, Vanity Fair could do to him.

In a very similar technique, the magazine turned out an unflattering profile of the former president entitled "The Comeback Id" in which it cited concerns of unnamed aides and "dinner party gossip," but no substantiation, that he had been less than faithful to Hillary since recovering from heart surgery in 2004 ... suggesting particularly that Clinton had made an extra stop in California to "visit" 45-year-old actress Gina Gershon.

Gershon's publicist called the insinuation "a lie" and Clinton ... hardly sounding presidential ... called author Todd Purdum a "dishonest reporter" and "a scumbag." But Clinton had no luck in wringing a concession ... Vanity Fair refused to retract or correct.