With a political sex scandal all over the headlines, at some point the time comes for the argument—well worth having—about whether it should be in the headlines at all. In Salon, Glenn Greenwald makes the impassioned argument that the Anthony Weiner case is none of our business, and that it’s a sad comment on journalists’ priorities:

Media stars contrive all sorts of high-minded justifications for luxuriating in every last dirty detail, when nothing is more obvious than that their only real interest is vicarious titillation. Reporters who would never dare challenge powerful political figures who torture, illegally eavesdrop, wage illegal wars or feed at the trough of sleazy legalized bribery suddenly walk upright — like proud peacocks with their feathers extended — pretending to be hard-core adversarial journalists as they collectively kick a sexually humiliated figure stripped of all importance. The ritual is as nauseating as it is predictable.

No argument here that there are better, braver ways to apply this journalistic feistiness, that we’ve gone into overkill, that I can’t stand hearing the likes of Chris Matthews pontificate morally. And as I’ve said, I personally wouldn’t base a vote for Congress, mayor or dogcatcher on an infidelity. But I can’t agree that anyone not married to Weiner has “absolutely no legitimate reason” to follow the story. For starters, this ignores the story’s timeline; that is, at what point exactly should it have stopped being a story?