Semi-retired gossip queen Bonnie Fuller often takes to the Huffington Post to critique famous women and lady politicos abusing their power. It's often her thesis that famous women bring negativity upon themselves, and it is not the fault of our gossip-y culture nor our incessant need to know every bit of personal minutiae that is the downfall of American culture.

Fuller, you'll recall, was until recently the editorial director of American Media, which published not only Star, but John Edwards' favorite publication The National Enquirer. And its editor, David Perel, now finds himself pulling a Fuller — taking not to HuffPo, but to the Wall Street Journal's op-ed page, where he, too, defends his profession.

It's been a long time coming. His paper has been attacked by the left (for reporting John Edwards' affair) and the right (for pushing Sarah Palin scandals) and the fourth estate (for not having journalistic standards … and beating them to the Edwards story, which they opted to ignore). But Perel takes it in stride, pointing out the obvious hypocrisy of it all: The private lives of political types should be off-limits, the argument goes, until it's the opponent's personal matters that become scandalous.

This is an interesting, albeit not foreign, role for Perel, who writes: "So with apologies to John Edwards, Sarah Palin and untold other Democrats and Republicans, the tabloid media gladly accepts its role of covering the scandals, relying on the American public to decide if that information is relevant to job performance."

While the MSM left the Edwards affair alone, until he admitted it to ABC News, they jumped on the anonymous report on DailyKos that Palin's fifth child Trig was actually her grandchild, and the son of Palin's daughter Bristol. Sure, the rumor was eventually debunked (mostly), but the damage was done — all because the press decided that scandal was worth boarding the bandwagon.

The Enquirer editor has long been a defender of his industry's practices, much the same way any tabloid editor often finds himself forced to do. It's the same way fashion magazine editors must defend their product against charges of racism and unhealthy body image. Except it's laughable for an editor at Vogue or W to argue they do neither of these things, because they produce an issue every month that flagrantly contradicts the gimmick.

At the very least, Perel is honest about his industry's practices, and he's armed himself with the most ardent of defenses: It's not that the tabloid business is sunshine and daises, but the mainstream press who criticizes it is often no better. And we enjoy no better an excuse than one that points out the hypocrisy of others.

[WSJ]