Radio Mud: Thom Hartmann Responds to Weiner With Old Enquirer Boehner Story

The sour grapes were incredibly sour on the Thom Hartmann radio show on Thursday when they led off with the news that Anthony Weiner was resigning. Broadcasting live from the Netroots Nation hootenanny in Minneapolis, Hartmann went right from an admitted sex scandal to an unproven old story from last November in the National Enquirer:

Looks like Anthony Weiner’s about to step down. John Boehner’s involved in a major sex scandal. It’s all over the page of the National Enquirer. Two different women, they’re naming the women. So this is this is shades of the John Edwards revisit.

The Edwards case certainly proved that the Enquirer sometimes has the journalistic goods on wandering politicians. But the Boehner story of romancing a lobbyist (complete with the rumor that the New York Times is investigating) sounds more like the crumbled Vicki Iseman story used against John McCain.

The subject re-emerged when The Nation’s John Nichols joined the show. Hartmann was quick to assert the bizarre point that the National Enquirer has only been wrong once in the last thirty years. He cited a story involving Carol Burnett as an example. They asserted that Eric Cantor was the face of the Republicans for the Weiner story because Boehner has skeletons in his closet:

NICHOLS: I don’t like this kind of politics, it doesn’t have much interest to me but I think its significant –

HARTMANN, jumping in: – I think if it wasn’t for the Weiner thing we wouldn’t even be discussing it.

NICHOLS: Boehner never stepped up; they kept having Cantor out front to talk about it. Cause Boehner was afraid because he doesn’t want --

HARTMANN: He’s got some skeletons in his own closet.

NICHOLS: Skeletons? It’s like a whole graveyard in that closet.

HARTMANN: Amazing!

Liberal talk radio doesn't wait for the "establishment" media to report on these alleged adulteries. They just trust the Enquirer first (they're never wrong, says Hartmann) and ask questions later.