Boy, that whole mess seems like it was 100 years ago, huh? I haven’t checked for any news on the story lately, but presumably she and the baby and their hush money are doing fine.

But there is an interesting bit of news on the media coverage of the story. Sorry, I mean the non-coverage. As anybody who was reading us this summer can tell you, I had a post or 20 about how the news was turning a blind eye to this huge, huge story. (Here’s just one example.) Deceiver was one of the few blogs talking about it and digging up new info during the three long weeks between Edwards’ late-night hotel tryst and his kinda-sorta confession, and we’re still waiting for that thank-you card from the mainstream media for picking up their slack.

Well, if you still have any doubt that the people we rely on for our news simply did not want this story to happen, ex-L.A. Times employee Tim Cavanaugh just removed it. Over at Reason Online, he has an article about… I’m not sure, actually. Deconstruction and postmodernism and other stuff that just gives me a headache. But in his discussion of how the Obama and McCain campaigns are both trying to “unpack the other side’s assumptions,” he finally confirms what most informed people had already figured out (emphasis mine):

This summer the National Enquirer caught former Democratic vice-presidential nominee John Edwards meeting with his mistress in a Beverly Hills hotel. The Los Angeles Times demonstrated a pronounced lack of enthusiasm for the story in its own back yard, even putting out a notice to its bloggers to avoid mentioning it. Before long, Mickey Kaus and other prominent media critics had jumped all over the paper. As a participant in the fun (I approved the one blog post the L.A. Times had on the matter prior to the gag order; I and the author of the post were both subsequently fired, though the events were unrelated… as far as I know), I can say that while some of the principal players’ roles were misinterpreted, the overall characterization was accurate. The L.A. Times desperately wanted to avoid this damaging story, dressed up its desires in media-diligence drag (we were told not to comment until the paper’s reporters were through looking into the matter), and as a result was beaten and humiliated in its own backyard. Tim Rutten, the sanctimonious endomorph who leads the paper’s columnist lineup, ended up admitting as much in a column written after Edwards had confessed and everybody else had stopped caring. Bias unpacking: 100 percent successful.

Not sure what that last part means, but it’s just nice to have somebody confirm what we all suspected.

As for how it relates to the political news we’re getting now… you make the call.