Over the weekend, Los Angeles Times media critic Tim Rutten tore into Lou Dobbs and his "Corrupt News Network," calling out the brown-skin-a-phobe for making "opposition to illegal immigration and free trade the centerpiece of his neonativist/neopopulist platform" all in hopes of boosting ratings against the other cable nets. Last night, Dobbs returned the favor, calling Rutten an "elitist partisan" and a "lousy media critic." Ooooh! Can't wait to see which employer-sanctioned fighting words they use when the LAT and CNN (and Politico) team up for the January debates.

"By its very nature, gossip does not respect the distinction between public and private because it doesn't acknowledge the existence of such a dichotomy," writes LA Times media wagger Tim Rutten. His newspeg? L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, whose extramarital affairs with Telemundo's Mirthala Salinas made his paper, the Los Angeles Daily News, LA Weekly, and even bubbled-in Manhattan media types interested for a hot minute. Villaraigosa would not be in the position he's in – defending himself against everything from conflicts of interest to being a bad human being – if it weren't for the online space, argues Rutten, and the way it's reduced the news cycle to minutes and a platform for salacious gossip.

That is, if it weren't for nosy shits like us, Villaraigosa might still have a shot at the White House one day. Sorry 'bout it.