One could hardly find a more illuminating window into the unethical political and media culture festering in this country than to read today’s “scoop” on (yecch!) Gawker, the celebrity-stalking, rumor-mongering website that makes TMZ look like The Economist.  Its breathless lead:

“Did you know that Scott Brown—the new star Republican Senator—was accused of harassing a female campaign worker in 1998? We have the documents to prove it. Did the Democrats blow an opportunity to keep their 60th Senate seat?“

The story goes on to explain that a female staffer sued Scott Brown ten years ago, but that shortly thereafter her lawyer filed a motion to withdraw as  counsel, stating that “to the best of my knowledge, information and belief, the above allegations [in the lawsuit, by the staffer] are not supported by good grounds.” The next day,the staffer withdrew her suit, and it was dismissed with prejudice, meaning that it cannot be filed again.

This is hardly rocket science. The lawsuit was bogus; it never should have been filed. Once he examined the supposed basis of the claim, the staffer’s lawyer concluded he had been misled. Everyone knows you can find a lawyer who will file a lawsuit for almost anything and anyone—like, for example, Lindsay Lohan’s multi-million dollar defamation  suit alleging that a TV commercial intentionally slandered her by featuring an infant named “Lindsay” who was referred to as a “milkaholic”—and yet this suit was such a stinker that it could find no takers. Still, Gawker is puzzled:

“But why did Democrats and members of the national press fail to even bring up the fact that Scott Brown had once been accused of sexual harassment and defamation in the myriad stories about him prior to Massachusetts’ special election in January? Google it. The entire incident is conspicuously absent…The Democratic leadership in Washington did not, as far as we can tell, raise the harassment claim at any point during the election, even though it could have been used to raise doubts about Brown in the lead up to what was a very close election. Firth’s charges may have been baseless. But many politicians have seen their political prospects damaged by far less than allegations contained in an actual lawsuit. Why didn’t White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel feed this to liberal media outlets in an effort to discredit Brown? Clearly, if the situation were reversed and it had been a Democrat in a high-profile special election who had a harassment and defamation suit in his past, the story would have been a talking point on Fox News for weeks.”

Gee. Tough question. Other than the fact that to do so would be dishonest, misleading, unfair, irresponsible, manipulative, insincere, unjust, cruel, mean-spirited, hypocritical, craven, a bright-line violation of the Golden Rule, disrespectful of the voters, degrading to the democratic process, unethical and, oh yeah, wrong, I can’t think of one single reason.

But none of these would occur to a garbage-peddling site like Gawker, and come to think of it, it may have a point: none of these considerations have stopped either party or the media from using this kind of non-event to set off  damaging fake “scandals” in the past, if it meant winning a close election.

Why did the Democrats fail to use it? In a culture without ethics, it’s a total mystery.