Unless of course they are something else--not purveyors of information, but chroniclers of history, practioners of doublethink.

The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them . . . . To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies — all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth. (Orwell, George (1949). Nineteen Eighty-Four)

Yet even in totalitarian societies, information still found its way through. I distinctly remember reading commentary back in the early 1980s about how Russians would glean information from Pravda by what was not said. Sudoku players will understand this concept very well--the logical derivation of value and position from absence.

To date, the Democrats have not achieved the Canadian ideal of crimethink, and thus the oh-so-serious mainstream media make themselves objects of ridicule, as they engage in the fiction that they are keeping the story out of the public consciousness by refusing to talk about it. Ironically, Byron York himself is touched with this delusion, as he mused over when the mainstream media will legitimize the story by covering it.

Begging Mark's pardon, but this seems an awful lot like the British penchant for according legitimacy and authority to the royals when its abundantly clear to everyone else that they are totally irrelevant.

Too many of us are yet in an anachronistic thrall to mainstream media authority--they don't matter folks, the Edwards love child scandal is just the latest proof in an what is becoming an unending stream of evidence. Perhaps it is true that old ideas only die when the people who held them do, but is that really necessary?

We are fast approaching the denouement--the media candidate, Barack Obama (Peace be upon his name) is likely to repeat the ignoble performances of George McGovern and Michael Dukakis.

If you really want the news, read the National Enquirer.

P.S: The Enquirer has a front page teaser about Obama's infidelities--enquiring minds want to know...

UPDATE: Good stuff at Gawker.

Oh yes, the buttoned-down media will soon be lapping this story up with a spoon.

See, previously the Edwards scandal was just an irrelevant trifle about how the maybe next U.S. attorney general or even vice president had a baby with another woman while his wife died of cancer and possibly paid the mistress hush money and lied to everyone about it. But now it's about how a speaker at a meaningless convention might distract the media from covering the media event in the way media handlers prefer. In other words, a REAL story.

Interesting trap Edwards is in--up the ante by issuing a stronger denial and risk being totally hosed by evidence the Enquirer is keeping in reserve, or stand pat and hope for reasonable doubt to gild his long-term prospects. Not surprisingly, the post's negative comments don't actually state a disbelief in the allegations, but opinions of whether the mainstream media is acting responsibly by ignoring the story, or annoyance that the candidate's sexual proclivities are a matter of public discussion.