The latest faux outrage in the world of the faux subject of ‘jouralistic ethics’ concerns Gawker.

Let me say up front, that I am petty and mean-spirited enough to occasionally give Gawker a page view. By and large the people they write about are no more dysfunctional or detestable than Gawker’s staff but they tend to self-absorbed celebrities. If we’ve reached the point where we can’t slag celebrities then the terrorists have won.

A brief synopsis.

It is alleged by Gawker, that the CFO of the Conde Nast publishing conglomerate, a guy named David Geithner, was planning a business trip to Chicago.

As part of his preparations he contacted a ‘gay porn star’, made arrangements to have sex (or whatever it is that you would do with a gay porn star) with the stage name of Brodie Sinclair, and sent him $2500.

I ask you, who among us has not done this?

There are two complicating factors. First, Sinclair was being tossed out of his apartment. According to him it was because he is a gay porn star. I think there is probably more to the story than that. Chicago is not noted as a hotbed of conservatism or religiosity. In doing his ‘due diligence’ Mr. Sinclair discovered Mr. Geithner’s true identity and began pressing him (can I say that?) to get his brother to bring smoke on the landlord and anyone else involved in his eviction. This seems to have put Mr. Geithner off his feed and he cancelled his ‘reservation’ with Mr. Sinclair.

Mr. Sinclair, whether seeking a quick buck, or miffed at the lack of homosexual solidarity shown by Mr. Geithner contacted Gawker and gave them this text messages with Mr. Geithner. Gawker, oblivious to the danger of mixing liberal napalm with a homosexual blowtorch blithely did what it has always done.It ran a snarky story telling all.

Oh, I said there were two complicating factors:

Yeah… Mr. Geithner is married and has children.

A brouhaha ensued in which Gawker was accused of douchebaggery. No sh**. F***ing Gawker was accused of having poor judgment and poor ethics and being douchebags. Raise your hand if you did not know this before last week. Didn’t think so. And they were accused of “gay shaming.” I really don’t know what that is. We are at a point as a society where our government celebrates homosexuality and punishes you if you don’t go along. Hell, Anthony Kennedy used awarding ‘dignity’ to homosexuals as a reason to foist homosexual marriage off on the nation. What does this cretin think it is? 1990 or something when people cared about married men engaging is energetic and athletic sex with homosexuals who were rented by the hour?

There’s a case for outing public figures when they actively campaign against LGBT rights. When journalist Michael Rogers outed gay Republicans in the early 2000s, it served the public good: The hypocritical politicians were often shamed out of office, replaced by representatives who were far less hostile to gays, lesbians and transgender people. The incidents also helped raise awareness about LGBT rights.

But Gawker outing Geithner serves no purpose other than to gay-shame someone who isn’t even a public figure — he’s a private person with a powerful brother. The piece evinces a subtle homophobia, since part of what the reader is expected to do is recoil in horror at the thought of a married man hiring a gay escort. Beyond cruelly wrecking an innocent man’s life, the only thing Gawker and Sargent achieved was a temporary traffic boost. It’s a flagrant abuse of the incredible power those of us in the media have.

In the end, Gawker imitated Roberto Duran. It screamed ¡No Mas! and pulled the article.

Gawker is sleazy. It always has been. It may be on the cusp of being sued out of business by Hulk Hogan. In Hogan’s case he was videotaped having sex with someone else’s wife and didn’t know he was being taped… awkward to say the least. Gawker has not been criticized for this, in fact, they have received support from their colleagues.

The upcoming trial has also troubled media law experts like Lynn Oberlander, general counsel for First Look Media and part of a media coalition that recently argued for full press access to the trial.

“The biggest issue is that the jury could say, ‘No, this wasn’t newsworthy,’ and put the jury into the newsroom, making determinations after the fact what constitutes newsworthiness and what doesn’t constitute newsworthiness,” Oberlander told HuffPost.

Denton considers the Hogan tape not only newsworthy, but in keeping with Gawker’s long-running editorial ethos. “Why does this company exist?” he said. “This company exists because journalists kept secrets amongst themselves. They passed them around as gossip.”

For instance, he noted that it had been widely known in Manhattan’s media world that CNN anchor Anderson Cooper was gay and yet, unlike Gawker, other news organizations didn’t disclose that detail of the journalist’s life.

“If we have information, if it’s true and it’s interesting and it’s legal to put it out there, we will publish,” Denton said. “We have this catchphrase, ‘Whatever We Know, Whatever We Think,’ and we try to share that as much as we can.”

Indeed, when [mc_name name=’Rep. Mark Sanford (R-SC)’ chamber=’house’ mcid=’S000051′ ] took his ‘hike in the Appalachians’ there was no outcry about “horndog shaming’ or any visible concern for his family. Bristol Palin, who is nearly as irrelevant as a public figure as Erick’s new FoxNews colleague, Meghan McCain, has had her private life put under a microscope.

So the hooha on Gawker’s ‘ethics’ is nothing more than sanctimonious bull****.

Gawker came under fire on this, not because of their coverage but because of their target.

David Geithner is a liberal Democrat.

He donated $1,000 to Kirsten Gillebrands Senate campaign. His brother was Obama’s Treasury secretary. Can you imagine a similar outcry over a conservative? Or even a liberal Republican? No. Of course you can’t and no one else can either.

David Geithner is a homosexual living a disordered life but he’s a liberal Democrat so he’s off limits.

This, to the media and the left, makes him a martyr. A man willing to shell out $2500 to be buggered should be safe in his perversion. It doesn’t matter that he is a powerful executive in a powerful media company. His dishonesty in both his marriage and his adultery makes him deserving of privacy. The claim of “gay shaming” really gives away the game. If anyone is deserving of privacy in their adultery it is a powerful man who spends $2500 to roger a beautiful woman — or a man like Hogan, who is filmed without his consent doing something he’s rather not be public knowledge. That is at least understandable and, one might say, time honored behavior. Not excusable but explainable and understandable.

Resolved. Gawker is a noxious collection of egregious douchebags.

We can all agree on that. But if that agreement is to mean anything going forward it is that Gawker’s douchebaggery is wrong no matter who is the target. The Huffington Post twit who complained of “gay shaming” has this to say:

There’s a case for outing public figures when they actively campaign against LGBT rights. When journalist Michael Rogers outed gay Republicans in the early 2000s, it served the public good: The hypocritical politicians were often shamed out of office, replaced by representatives who were far less hostile to gays, lesbians and transgender people. The incidents also helped raise awareness about LGBT rights.

This argument underscores the fact that the people complaining about this don’t care about the ethics they care about the objective. If anyone is being a world class hypocrite here it is Geithner who has married a woman and had children but still has to spend the equivalent of the per capita GDP of the Philippines to rendezvous with a homosexual porn star.

The attack on Gawker is noting more or less than a warning shot to the media that even a gossip site can’t report of the marital infidelity of a Democrat who is homosexual. The smokescreen about ethics is just a laughable cover story.