Monday leftovers: ignoring the Enquirer and more!

--As Dan Kennedy notes, the National Enquirer's reporting on Sarah Palin and her family poses a challenge for the mainstream media. Should they follow the Enquirer's lead, since the tabloid got John Edwards' affair right? Or should they leave these stories alone, becuse, well, it's the Enquirer?

I'd suggest that the press avoid chasing the Enquirer's Palin reportage, at least for the time being, and here's why. As the New York Times demonstrated yesterday, there are plenty of substantive problems with Palin's record. But to successfully draw the public's attention to these problems, the press needs to break through the myth of victimhood that's been created around Palin. Reporting on alleged dysfunction in Palin's family will only make this harder to do. 

--Liberals should temper their glee over Karl Rove's recent criticisms of John McCain's ads. Rove is trying to create an equivalency between McCain's honesty (or lack thereof) and Barack Obama's. In fact, though, McCain's offenses have been far worse. (Of course, if Democrats and the media followed Mickey Kaus's advice, no one would actually be discussing that.)

--Did anyone else think that Saturday's Herald cover story was a bit...off, tonally speaking? (And yeah, I get that 1. the Herald's a tabloid and 2. Entwhistle's horrible crimes make the thought of violent retribution extremely appealing on a gut level.)