Okay, don't tell me you don't look at the tabloids on the sly when you are in the supermarket checkout line. I do. Sometimes, yes, I even buy one, if there is a timely potentially believable political scandal story.
Most of the time, the tabloids focus on Britney and Paris (now also of John McCain ad fame), but when they go after a political figure, we have found that some of them have about a 50% chance of being onto something. For instance, The National Enquirer had such specific details of the Edwards trip to the hotel in Beverly Hills that he could have sued them for libel if it weren't true. And as sleazy as these publications are, The Enquirer was credited with being one of the more accurate sources on the Lewinsky scandal.
The main reason that the mainstream press looks down on them on political stories is that they pay for information if they need to, not to mention that "real" reporters look down on their tabloid brethren.
So it's not surprising that there's been a persistent tabloid story that the corporate establishment media has been ignoring: allegations that Laura Bush has basically decided to part company with Junior after his term of office is over again. Here are some screen shots from this week's Globe, one of the "leading" tabloids:
and
During a period in 2006, when Laura Bush was noticeably absent from Bush's side much of the time, the Globe printed this story and cover:
And another tabloid took note around the same time period:
Now, travel with us a little farther down the road on this one, because you only need look at Bush's inappropriate, juvenile, and just plain bizarre behavior during his Olympic trip to wonder if indeed he has been hitting the sauce again (of which there has been potential evidence in the past, including a bruised face and that strange pretzel and "near beer" choking incident, among others).
We noted Bush's embarrassing actions in China in a BuzzFlash column entitled, "The Diplomat Decathlon: Bush's Marathon of Olympic Blunders." If Obama had done just one of the adolescent and plain bumbling actions Bush did in Beijing, he would have been pilloried.
Bush held up the American flag backwards; he tapped a small U.S. flag impatiently against his thigh during the opening ceremony (a dishonoring of the flag); and he slapped the backside of a young nubile female volleyball player (no, we are not making this up):
This begs the question whether Bush had returned, in full, to his Frat boy days at Yale, including getting high on the sauce. Wonkette, for one, asked the question, "Was Bush Falling Down Drunk At Olympics?"
So you can rightfully disdain the sensationalism of the tabloids, but sometimes our guess is that on political scandals, they get closer to the truth than the corporate mainstream media -- or at least they are one step ahead of them.
Bush's behavior at the Olympics should have been a national scandal, but big media just shrugged it off as jocular good fun.
As for Laura and George's marriage (and her much rumored short stay at the Mayflower Hotel last year), only time will tell if George, the self-avowed alcoholic, has returned to his old ways.
In the meantime, if you want to even consider the possibility that George is downing liquor, the only place, apparently, you will be allowed to openly read about it is in the tabloids.
Of course, tabloid fodder about Britney, Brangelina, Paris, Rosie, and the like regularly seep up the feeding chain into the corporate press, but Bush's personal life is off limits.
The question is why?
Isn't he the one still answering the 3 AM phone calls?
Actually, probably not. They just go directly to Dick Cheney. He's only drunk when he is out shooting friends ... uh, we mean pheasants.
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