It looks like America’s pundit classes have decided it’s no big deal that House Majority Whip Steve Scalise pals around with white supremacists. Here’s a finger-wagging article at the New York Observer berating everyone who thought there was actually an important story here: It’s Time for a Slow Journalism Movement.

Various media outlets, for their part, repeated the story and offered their own editorial spin. But then, a strange thing happened. A few diligent reporters began to check around, make a few calls and do a bit of research, an arcane set of activities collectively known as journalism, and found that the story simply wasn’t true. It turns out that Mr. Scalise is apparently guilty of speaking to a civic association in the Metarie, Louisiana Best Western Hotel, a few hours before the EURO meeting was held in the same spot. One of the organizers of the EURO meeting was also a leader of the civic association, but to fault Mr. Scalise for that is guilt by too many degrees of association.

We’ll just note that the sole “witness” who supposedly debunked this story is long-time David Duke associate and confirmed neo-Nazi Kenny Knight — who also happens to be a friend of Steve Scalise. But this is supposed to be “guilt by too many degrees of association?”

Nobody thinks it’s a little strange that a top Republican politician has neo-Nazi friends?

Knight very obviously has a motive for lying about Scalise’s speech; as a white supremacist, he wants to protect an influential politician who’s sympathetic to their twisted cause.

But this apparently doesn’t occur to people like the author of this piece, who suddenly finds the word of David Duke’s right hand man to be perfectly credible, without a single bit of corroborating evidence.

This is one of those times when it seems like the whole media establishment has lost its freaking mind.