This is interesting. Turns out the National Enquirer was also following the John McCain story back in February — you remember, the one the NYT ran with all those questionable allusions to McCain's love life — except they couldn't find enough evidence to run their own story. Ha.

Five Enquirer reporters had spent more than a month in 2007 chasing down the same rumors but failed to uncover any documentary evidence. "I wouldn't have run that piece, there was nothing in it," [editor-in-chief of the National Enquirer, David] Perel told me recently about the Times story, which received widespread criticism when it ran. "It was filled with innuendo. . . . When you're done reading it, you're like, there's no there there."