Another Cindy McCain Photo and a Correction

As I reported yesterday, The National Enquirer is trying to complete a political trifecta by pushing a rumor about Cindy McCain with "another man." Radar Online has acquired another grainy photo of a blonde in a turtleneck kissing a Steven Seagal lookalike.

As I stated before, both pictures could be perfectly innocent, and the Enquirer offers no proof to the contrary, even parsing its accusation into single-ply tissue paper.

It is worth noting, however, an error in HuffPo's reporting.

A reader notes that this story is particularly dubious because Cindy McCain was on a trip to Kosovo at the time of the festival where the photos were supposedly taken.

In fact, Radar reports that these photos were taken in April of 2006, not in 2008, which is when Cindy McCain was in Kosovo. Still, this attacks the story's credibility in a different way. It seems nearly impossible that rumors like these wouid lie dormant for over 2 years, only to be revealed a week and a half after people would have really cared.

The last line of my story yesterday," No matter how it turns out, this story does not merit retelling," held some hefty irony. Allow me to explain.

I have long despaired at the erosion of journalistic ethics, especially concerning offers of fact, and the blogosphere's contribution to it. In a conversation with a network executive on the subject, I've been told that the mere fact that a story is "out there" can now merit reporting it.

Since the Edwards story broke, the blogs have become more of a conduit between rumor and news. For example, CNN's Soledad O'Brien cited a blog post in attacking Sarah Palin's record on special needs funding, but the data in that post turned out to be grossly incomplete and misinterpreted.

In this case, I would prefer to ignore this story, and avoid the pitfalls of trying to debunk something that isn't really there yet. And that's the travesty. The mere fact of the report presents an expectation that it must now be proven or disproven.

HuffPo was well-intentioned in its presentation, but the result is amplification. Now that the bell is rung, all we can do is try to make it sound clearer. Cindy McCain has nothing to explain, nothing to answer for.

Tommy Christopher co-hosts "Unusable Signal" , on BlogTalkRadio Tues - Thur at 10pm, and Fri, & Sat at 11pm. Click here for the Unusable Signal homepage.