Another (not) news item

Encouraged by their own efforts to dispute the newsworthiness of such things as suicide bombings, GOPers are now seeking to add another item to the "not news" column.

From the AP:

Some news outlets in northeastern Pennsylvania have declined to report on an encounter between a married GOP congressman and a 29-year-old woman, with one managing editor telling readers he didn't think the matter was "my business. Or yours."

"Where is the connection between the politician's private moral life and his public performance?" Lawrence K. Beaupre, the managing editor of The Scranton Times and The Tribune, explained in a letter to readers Sunday.

Of course some might say that an extra-marital affair between a leader of the "family-values" party and a much younger woman might be a tad bit newsworthy. But no, it must be a result of that dadgum elite liberal media bias. I mean there's NO WAY the SCLM (so called liberal media) would plaster a Democratic politician's extra-marital affair all over the front pages, right?

Of course the story had just a bit more going for it than just an affair involving a married GOPer pol:

After obtaining a tip and a police report, the Times Leader newspaper of Wilkes-Barre reported that police had been dispatched to 64-year-old Rep. Don Sherwood (news, bio, voting record)'s Washington home last September after a woman dialed 911 from his bathroom.

The woman told police Sherwood had been giving her a back rub and abruptly began choking her. Sherwood denied assaulting the woman.

Assault? Erotic asphyxiation? Who knows?

News? According to GOPer publisher, apparently not.

One wonders where the Republican effort to de-newsify information that's awkward for them will lead us. Perhaps the failure of White House officials to notify the president that the Capitol might be under attack is an honest indicator of what GOPers perceive to be newsworthy.

We now return you to our coverage of the Michael Jackson trial.