I love TPM...but today TPM had David Vitter's driver backing into a parking cone on the front page. What is up with that? How did ParkingConeGate become a story?

The story I am referring to is here.

Anyone else a little weirded out by this? I'm used to this sort of fluff being broadcast on morning cable news shows and hearing Wolf Blitzer blab about it when his producers go on a smoke break....but here? at TPM? Really? Why not just get it over with and add some Benny Hill chase music to the video and a Bugs Bunny "that's all folks" at the end?

I already read about David Vitter earlier in the day over at Muckraker. That was a story. That is TPM. I'd even take it in stride if it was a nice piece of social engineering with a link to the Muckraker story designed to get people to read some good reporting. Instead, it feels like a "gotcha" throw-away story with no link to any substance. I beg you TPM, do not go the way of cable news as the site matures and gains staff and clout. Please.

I hear tell around the blogs that the MSM just loves to stroke it's own ego. Well, what is ParkingConeGate but a nice big pat on the back for media everywhere. I believe the insinuation here,(quote from story)
"After dodging questions, Vitter made a quick exit from the scene, or at least tried to, but instead backed his car into a sign in the parking lot, in full view of the assembled media:" is that David Vitter got so flustered by the heroic super-reporters of the local press that he must have gotten in his car and screamed at his driver to make a quick get-away from those scions of truth and transparency. Then ParkingConeGate happened and all the reporters had a good laugh and high-fived each other for scaring the wits out of a Senator. Chalk one up for the good guys!

The cognitive dissonance in this post is just fantastic. Can we all just kind of stop for a second and remember that Vitter wasn't driving his car? That he really wasn't high-tailing it out of town with a posse of reporters hot on his tail? That David Vitter is plenty good at making the news without a helpful push from the media itself?

So anyway, my point is, this story belongs in the diary section or as an update to the previous story to drive more traffic to the actual news, not as a stand-alone post with a ridiculously cheesy double pop-culture reference as the headline with no links to the substantive stuff TPM produces.   This story didn't even show up on the DailyKos front page. It was in a
diary there, one that didn't even make the recommended list.   I'm not  a big  fan of slippery-slope arguments, I personally do not believe bestiality is next after gay marriage, but here I am, scared enough to be making a personal plea that TPM avoid the bestial sins of cable news reporting.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Benny Hill.
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