TheNational Enquirer, which published
a report this morning that “investigators are attempting to obtain a
tape” that proved an illicit rendezvous between President Barack
Obama and former US Senate campaign staffer Vera Baker, has updated
their story this afternoon to retract the claim that there is video
evidence of the affair with the alleged testimony of an anonymous
chauffeur.
Looks like the National Enquirer Obama sex scandal is
unraveling rather quickly. The latest from the paper is that “An Enquirer
reporter has confirmed the limo driver’s account of the secret 2004
rendezvous.” The limo driver allegedly in the know about the affair is
not a new piece of their puzzle– that claim was there last night– but in
the absence of the video evidence of ambiguous age, which was the
center of their report and would have been the one thing to lend them
any credibility, the limo driver is the core of the story.
This clarifies that they are trying to uncover a 6-year-old
maybe-affair with a testimony from the same time period, and that,
rather than having footage, they just have one first-hand account of
someone driving Baker to a hotel, where the President may or may not
have been. The Enquirer has not made clear the changes other
than adding the word “update” to the body of the report.
This also shifts the weight of the article from the story of the
affair itself to the fact that, apparently, someone out there is
“offering more than $1 million to witnesses to reveal what they know
about the alleged hush-hush affair.” Why? If it indeed happened six
years ago, and no one brought it up during Obama’s presidential
campaign, what use is it now, halfway into his first term? The obvious
go-to answer is that this could energize the far-right in time for the
2010 elections, but once it is revealed who perpetuated the rumors, true
or not, about a story so aged, the tactic could easily backfire.
Truth or not, the story proved to be the first major test for the
tabloid since it accurately reported the John Edwards
affair, which restored public faith in the tabloid and resulted in the
reaction to the story we saw last night. The major publicity that they
elicited from that proved their one powerful foray into journalism was
enough for the media to react with slightly more respect this time
around given the subject at hand, and that was the reason the report
surfaced here– not that the Enquirer published it, but that it
had the journalistic capital, so to speak, for such a wild story to
demand attention. As a news and media analyzer and curator, its our
mission to report stories that are being reported. A story with this
type of dubious, paper-thin accusation wouldn’t normally make the cut,
but when a newly respected gossip forum reports it– and the story is
reported solely because of the tabloid’s new reputation– it’s news in
the media industry.
Unless they can pull out the kind of irrefutable evidence they found
for the Edwards case, the Enquirer will return to their
previous reputation as a salacious provider of specious rumor and
innuendo, a stark difference from their recent placement alongside
titles considered for a Pulitzer.
