Conservative opiner Ross Douthat says the weekly may even deserve a nod in the public service category, and that everyone else gets a big fail for not digging into the initial John Edwards rumors — including us.

Douthat is the latest in a line of people to argue that the Enquirer deserves recognition for dogged and accurate reporting. He brings out broadly the same argument you can read in incisive, brilliant analyses of the issue here and here: "It's worth noting," says Douthat, "as a precedent for the Enquirer's Pulitzer bid, that The Times won a prize last year for its coverage of the Spitzer story."

He adds that political sex scandals are not should not be off-limits because "the private peccadilloes of politicians tend to interfere with, and corrupt, their commission of their public duties." Which is an ethical relief for us.