Y'know, I love Digby (one of my daily reads) but I have to take "issue" with this comment about the New York Times article on the Clintons' marriage:

(The Times) Friends -- eager to smooth any rough edges on the relationship -- tell old-married-couple stories of them gardening, playing Scrabble, and dining out at Le Cirque, Rasika, and Bayou in Harlem with old pals like the former party leader Terry McAuliffe, the power broker Vernon Jordan, and others. Last Christmas Eve, they wandered through the near-empty Chappaqua Village Market together, noticed by the occasional fellow shopper.

Rarely, however, do the Clintons appear in public when they are together. That physical distance is largely driven by their careers, but it is also partly by choice.

[...]

Democrats preparing for 2008 describe the political challenge this way: Clinton could prosper as a presidential candidate, yet the return of "the Clintons" could revive memories including the oft-derided two-for-the-price-of-one appeal of his 1992 presidential campaign, her role in the universal health care debacle, and the soap opera of infidelity.

(Digby) No folks, that excerpt isn't from Hello magazine or even Vanity Fair. That's the New York fucking Times and it's on page one. If people aren't thinking about the Clintons in terms of infidelity and betrayal now, New York's newest tabloid rag is going to make damned sure they are reminded of it.

Now that's being extremely unfair to the tabloids. Can you imagine the National Inquirer running this story on the front page? Of course not - because there's no story there. They wouldn't have run it without a picture of Clinton (either one) with a floozy in their lap, or at least holding hands or having an intimate dinner with someone other than their spouse. That would be a news story - because there would actually be well, er, news.

No, the New York Times isn't even living up to tabloid standards on this story.

Now bear in mind that the Times story had prime real estate - above the fold, on the left hand side. That's where you put your lead story? Is there really nothing else to talk about today? Not immigration? Not the NSA wiretapping, not even real tabloid news (say the Duke rape case?)

Over the last ten years the New York Times has gotten a lot of things wrong - Whitewater, Wen Ho Lee, Jayson Blair, WMD and on and on. They sat on the NSA wiretapping story for a year. That's not something a real newspaper, interested in breaking news and scooping the opposition, does.

Now they're running non-news stories on the front page. Maybe they've finally decided that since they get real news wrong surprisingly often, it's simpler just not to try any more...