When the tabloids reported on Clinton, the MSM picked it up

Yet they've been curiously silent about the persistent reports in the tabs about Captain Codpiece being back on the sauce again and Laura headed for a hotel, if she's not already there.

E! Online is hardly more than a shade above the National Enquirer, if that, but gossipmonger Ted Casablancas has now picked it up:

This distresses me quite a bit. You know how I adore Prez Dubya so. Yes, you do—as I’ve utterly applauded his actions in Iraq for eons. Just love how he’s got us over there killing people (them and us), occupying a country we have no biz being in. But, alas, this is a goss column, people want to laugh and point fingers, I keep forgetting.
So, let’s aim a few digits at ol’ Georgey-Porgey himself! This too-fun-fer e-words begins with the following quote:

“She's staying at the Hay-Adams. I don't know how many people know...but it's probably not many.”

That’s my Desk DeeCee, hard at busybody work, informing me further of what this column has more than hinted at before: that the U.S. Chief of Grief, George W. Bush, has a wife (by the name of Laura, ‘course) who’s so damn put out by the teetotaling Texan’s return to drinking that she had to get outta the White House. Woo-hoo! That be first-class First Lady dish there, my darlin’ goss lovers!

“She just couldn’t take it anymore,” whispered a former White House staffer who remains superclose to Miz Bush. “She’s had it.”
Like most of the rest of Bush’s constituents haven’t?

Kinda weird, though, as Laura-doll reportedly used to smoke fags, ya know. But whatev, guess she got squeaky clean and expects her hub-unit to do likewise (would it mean he’d get us the hell outta Iraq, already?). You go, barely elected girlfriend!

Oh, for the official record, neither the president’s press office nor the president’s wife’s press office would comment. Which I find damn insulting, as I help pay those persnickety peep’s salaries!

Paparazzi P.S.: Hate to blow Laura’s cover ‘n’ all, but look, you stalkers of all things Hollywood—if you want an exclusive snap of L.B., she’s not exactly using the posh inn's front door, ka-peesh?

Now perhaps you think a Very Serious Site(® me) like this one shouldn't stoop to gossipmongering. But when the state of the Clintons' marriage is fair game for the New York Times, shouldn't the mainstream media be picking it up when rumors of our dry drunk president being back on the bottle and our family values president's Stepford wife hightailing it to a hotel are this persistent?

As Jim Henley notes:

But if the man who has the authority to launch nuclear weapons all on his say-so is an alcoholic who has gone back on the sauce because of the pressure of his job, that seems to me to be fucking news! The public has the right to know that. And from what I can tell this seems to be the open secret among journalists that some people claimed Valerie Plame’s real job was, something “everybody knows” but nobody is saying. A president who has claimed absolute power based on a couple of stray clauses in the Constitution and a couple of dodgy recent laws is an addict who has fallen back into his habit.

That seems important.