Politico Writer Touts Fuzzy WWE Pedophile Scandal Story As ‘Being Promoted by Both Linda McMahon and Dems’

On Twitter, Shira Toeplitz, a staff writer for Politico.com, has posted a link to the Linda McMahon company pedophile scandal story last Friday by Politico’s Ben Smith and Maggie Haberman.

Toeplitz tweets, “Interesting: both @linda4senate and Dems promoting this story about her WWE tenure.”

It’s the old “we must be doing something right if both sides are mad at us.” Or in this case, “if both sides think we did something useful.”

I think the Politicos did something useful, all right. But I also think they blew the story by shifting the focus, from the widespread and credible reports in 1992 of abuse of underage ring boys to how McMahon supposedly “put a decisive end to a scandal while rescuing its real victim.” (The “real victim,” presumably, was the World Wrestling Federation – now World Wrestling Entertainment – executive, Pat Patterson, who resigned in the midst of the scandal and was brought back five months later.)

The Politico reporters also omitted key known facts about Linda McMahon’s actions and her company’s tactics, which might alter the interpretation of WWE lawyer Jerry McDevitt that the full story shows her intervention in the case constituted “a telling moment of compassion.”

Later today, when I have time to scan and upload it, I will post ring boy Tom Cole’s 1993 complaint against the McMahons in Oneida County (New York) court – after he was fired a second time.

Irv Muchnick