The Washington Post goes full tabloid on Tim Scott

Bruce Terris of the Washington Post considers the burning question of whether Tim Scott has a girlfriend. If this sounds like tabloid stuff, that’s because it is. Yet, it’s a step up for Terris who once asked Scott whether he’s a virgin.

At one point in his lengthy article Terris writes:

Let’s just get this out of the way: This is not a wink-wink story that uses “single” in place of “gay.” Despite the retrograde assumptions people still like to make about wifeless men of a certain age, there really is nothing to suggest that Scott is anything other than a confirmed bachelor in the most literal sense of the phrase.

I would suggest that when a reporter feels compelled to write such a disclaimer, he might consider scrapping the story.

To be fair, though, the purpose of Terris’ story is not to suggest that Scott is gay. The primary purpose is to suggest that Republican voters are homophobic. According to Terris, the issue of whether Scott has a girlfriend has been pushed by a GOP operative “to raise questions about [Scott’s] sexuality within the party’s stubbornly homophobic factions.”

But Terris fails to show that Republican voters care about his burning question. He quotes Bob Vander Plaats, the head of the Family Leader, a social conservative organization in Iowa, who says “I think our country is at the point where being married isn’t the top qualifier [for the presidency]. It probably doesn’t make the Top 50.”

In fact, Terris was nearly unable to find an Iowa Republican voter who is bothered by the fact that Scott is single and hasn’t been seen with a girlfriend. He writes:

For now, many of the Republicans checking out Scott at the Iowa fair didn’t really seem to specifically care that Scott was single. [Note: I’m not sure what work “specifically” is doing in this sentence or why Terris italicized it.}

“What matters to me is that he’s in favor of putting the family unit back together,” said Brian Heck, 60. “I’d be more worried about him having a bunch of illegitimate kids than having no kids.”

“I wouldn’t want someone to bring their children to the White House. That’s no place for them,” said Connie Hoksbergen, 57.

“I think it will just be less distracting,” said Greg Pollak, a pastor from Altoona, noting the drama that has lately swirled around presidential offspring. “It seems like the family have been a problem these past several years. I could even see it being an advantage.”

Terris did manage to find a 88-year-old man who asked, ”How come [Scott] doesn’t bring his wife and kids with him like all the other candidates do?” When informed that Scott was single but (allegedly) has a girlfriend, the old-timer wanted to know why he doesn’t bring her around.

If this is the best Terris could do, I think we can conclude that the question of whether Scott has a girlfriend is of no real importance to Republican voters.

If Terris finds it interesting, that’s okay. But it’s still tabloid stuff. Accordingly, it shouldn’t have made its way into the Post.

I doubt the story would have made it there but for the opportunity it gave Terris to claim (without evidence, as the Post likes to say) that Republicans are “stubbornly homophobic.”