You may remember Teddy Partridge’s post on Howard Kurtz, who for weeks obsessed about where David Letterman put his penis while at the same time ignored where Sen John Ensign put his, despite the public interest in Ensign’s behaviour as a public official, his infidelity (Letterman was neither a public official or married at the time), and Ensign’s known membership in the secretive Washington C STREET christian organization, the Senator’s possible ethical violations during the cover-up, and the Senator’s refusal to resign:
As long as prurient “media critic” Howard Kurtz, Other Guys’ Wieners correspondent, is given WaPo ink and pixels to write this on the front page of Saturday’s Style section, it obscures what non-entertainer and actual federal officeholder John Ensign has done that’s illegal:
No matter the motive, the tangled case centers on a classic love triangle: Stephanie Birkitt, Letterman’s longtime assistant, had previously dated the talk-show host before moving in with Halderman.
When Halderman saw the two embrace at the end of a private road near his Norwalk, Conn., home, “he felt betrayed,” Arnot said in an interview Friday. “He felt he was the backup. He felt lied to. He felt very angry, more at Letterman than at his girlfriend. . . . Joe was furious, beside himself, that this was being thrown in his face.”
Will Kurtz ever write about about John Ensign’s actual wrongdoing: putting his cuckolded chief of staff into a lobbyist job, making calls to get him clients, meeting with those clients and his former employee within the already absurdly short one-year no-lobbying window and then contacting federal agencies on behalf of those clients of his former chief of staff-turned-lobbyist? Asking another Senator, Tom Coburn, to be the adulterers’ go-between to negotiate a pay-off? And getting his own parents to write a check for $96,000 to the aggrieved family?
Will Howard Kurtz ever write about where John Ensign put his wiener
Well Howard has finally gotten around to it, actually he didn’t but Cynthia McFadden of ABC did and he interviewed her today about the story on his CNN show, Reliable Sources.
Watch:
Tags: Howard Kurtz



12 Comments
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About The Seminal
I guess two jobs with an obvious conflict of interest aren’t enough for Howie. Now he has a third gig as Ensign’s
defendermedia rep.Is there no bottom to his depravity?
Heh heh, love the title Neil.
Shameless really …an homage to the opening chapter of the World According to Garp.
How do these Republicans like Ensign manage to stay in office?
If that was a DEM with the Repubs in charge he would have been indited.
Great title and fine post; will definitely watch this tomorrow. Thanks, Neil, for the followup.
So the only thing Howie can ask about is sex and he thinks that is ‘unbiased’ reporting? Excuse me while I laugh at him from behind my veil.
I sure am glad there was a woman paying attention to the other 95% of the story, the important parts. It was a lot more interesting that way.
I am tired of reporters who are only interested in sex. It looks like nothing more than a cheap trick to avoid the real issues like graft and corruption.
Howie is consistent in his lines of leading questions. Here is another time but with Keith,
Keith Olbermann on CNN’s Reliable Sources
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUqVF5vPL_o&feature=related
iremember, you forgot the very first rule: IOKIYAR!!! Republics can do whatever they darn well please, esp when they live at C Street and are under the aegis of “The Family.” The Family, under the leadership of Doug Coe, has definitely stated outright that the so-called “family value rules” as espoused in the Bible and at Churches everywhere are only for you & me (eg, the serfs), and not for “we” (eg the Christo-Fascist overlords, as partially represented by those Republics in Congress).
My pleasure. We’re stronger when we work together.
What unseriousness Kurtz demonstrates to ask the question about whether Cythia McFadden’s reporting is “at heart a sex scandal story that’s good for ratings” when Cynthia had already said to him that she was trying to answer the question of whether there were ethical and/or legal violations.
Weird. It’s like he has his list of questions and will get through them in order no matter how the interview progresses. I wonder if that indicates a lack of interest.
Kurtz is such a weenie!
recommended
Sounds like laziness to me. He doesn’t want to have to edit, self-censor, or revise or rewrite, all of which are (usually) considered part of the basic skill set for a “journalist.”
Of course, I suppose laziness could also indicate a lack of interest…
Here it is: