The Invisible Check Boxes The Media Won't Describe

Yesterday, NPR reporter David Folkenflik was interviewing ABC reporter Chris Cuomo about the Andrew Weiner case: "As a journalism exercise, this was a very fascinating endeavor because it checks all the boxes for difficulty in journalism: Subject matter, difficult. There's a taste issue, there's a morality issue, there's an impact issue."

To hear Cuomo say that enraged me in ways that are hard to describe.

First: There's an impact issue? This is right up there with Clinton's blowjob in regards to how it affects the man's performance as a politician. It doesn't! What Weiner does on the 'net and with his personal life is sorta irrelevant. It may make him the butt of jokes, but that's about it. His constituency will have a chance to decide how they feel about their dirty-minded congressman in a few months, but the rest of us shouldn't have a say. I suspect the women in his district will flee him, but most men who care to vote have embraced their inner horndog enough to know Weiner isn't any different than anyone else.

There is no impact issue. Dan Savage is right: if David "Family Values" Vitter can keep his seat after being caught with a prostitute while wearing diapers and lying about it, Anthony Weiner can keep his seat as well.

Second: All the check boxes for difficulty in journalism? Where's this checklist? I want to see it. I want to see where the checkboxes read

• Confrontation with authority
• Speaking truth to power
• Exposing rank hypocrisy

I bet all of those have only one checkbox, in the third column, "Impossible."

Really, when was the last time the so-called liberal media confronted a sitting administration about anything?