That's the whole point

This paragraph over at the HuffPo is as amusing as it is frustrating:

Well, I thought I would bang on about this for a while, let’s say as long as it remains a news story. Every time I read the words “Rielle Hunter”, I am going to say the words “Vicki Iseman” and “Cindy McCain”. There you go. Rielle Hunter Vicki Iseman Cindy McCain Rielle Hunter Vicki Iseman Cindy McCain Rielle Hunter Vicki Iseman Cindy McCain. Fun!

What Jane Smiley doesn’t seem to understand is this: that’s the whole point! That’s why conservatives were upset in the first place. Look, if the media wants to adopt a see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, let’s-go-back-to-the-days-of-JFK policy of not reporting on extramarital affairs, then fine. Do that.

But what the media doesn’t get to do is report a thinly sourced, innuendo filled account of John McCain’s relationship (both professional and otherwise) with a lobbyist and then not report on John Edwards’s peccadilloes. Especially when there is no evidence of McCain’s transgressions and there’s an (alleged) illegitimate child from Edwards’s. Especially when a large portion of Edwards’s campaign seemed to be geared around how loving his relationship with Elizabeth Edwards was, and how difficult her battle with cancer was.