The Nuzzi Seizure of Power

"Future chronicles of the utter debasement of American political journalism will have to devote an entire chapter to the blowjob. The oral sex act was central to the 1998 Monica Lewinsky scandal, and figured prominently in President Bill Clinton's deposition advancing the argument that it didn't actually fall under the rubric of active "sexual relations." An avalanche of forensic scrutiny in the press ensued."

"Somehow, in hindsight, this salacious discourse comes off as positively quaint next to the revelations recounted by Beltway journalist Ryan Lizza in his serial Substack breakdown of the demise of his relationship with Olivia Nuzzi. In case you haven't already heard, Nuzzi, the former DC politics scribe for New York magazine, had conducted an apparently digital-only affair with current (and currently married) Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during his third-party presidential run, after Nuzzi had profiled the candidate for New York. The ensuing scandal plunged Nuzzi into a short bout of professional disrepute, prior to her full rehabilitation as West Coast editor at Vanity Fair, and the author of a leadenly composed memoir graced with the unbearably pompous title American Canto. In his follow-up Substack post, Lizza describes his discovery of Nuzzi's dalliance with RFK Jr. when he came across a poem to Nuzzi by the Camelot heir. It is my unfortunate duty to present it in full here:"

Salacious sexual episodes have driven major moments in American political journalism, from the Monica Lewinsky oral-sex focus in 1998 to the 2007 Larry Craig restroom incident. Intense forensic media scrutiny amplified those episodes and created shorthand public narratives, such as labeling individuals "gay and closeted." A recent episode involved a digital affair between a political journalist and a married presidential candidate, which led to temporary professional disrepute, later rehabilitation, and a memoir. Published reproductions of intimate exchanges, including poems and detailed accounts, illustrate how access reporting and personal entanglements have merged into sensationalized journalism.

Read at The Nation