[I posted part of this as a comment in another thread, but it's worth a diary, I think]
The U.S. media is beginning to reference the Drudge allegations, although it seems as yet unsure of how to frame it. There are several wire service stories that mention it (here's Reuters, and there are at least two on the Knight-Ridder/Tribune wire -- here's one), although they tend to frame it in the metastory how is the media (um, I guess that means us) going to cover this, or with the excuse that they are covering Kerry's denial on Imus.
But, as the Philadelphia Daily News gleefully reports in a stroke of tabloid headline genius (if that is not an oxymoron), the "Media Mayhem in Malvern" has already begun.
If it's going to get into the mainstream press, it will happen soon enough. As the Daily News story details, the media trucks are already surrounding the home of the woman in question, whose name is already all over the news, Alexandra Polier.
See also this item from the suburban Philadelphian Norristown Times Herald, not far from Alexandra Polier's home
East Whiteland Township resident Marylyn Calabrese surveyed her quiet little street Friday.
"This is more excitement than we're ever used to having," she said.
Calabrese was scanning the crowd of 20 or so media members that had gathered on Madeline Drive outside the home of her neighbors.
Local print and television media, a CNN camera crew, an NBC crew, a New York Times reporter and two reporters that are employed by an agency that works for The (London) Sun had staked out the house.
and
She said she had received telephone calls from reporters at the Los Angeles Times and a Washington, D.C. paper - she could not recall the name - the night before.
The L.A. Times is calling the neighbors of this woman's parents. The U.S. media is all over this story, and if there is anything remotely to it, you can expect it in the papers within a week, no more.
(There's more in the story that suggests the circus has begun: reporters harrassing a young man who comes out of the house to get the mail; an interview with another woman who interned with Kerry and knows Alexandra Polier well; etc.)
With the media swarming, it seems the story will either die the natural death we are all assuming and hoping for or else, if the mainstream media finds something worth pursuing, start to get play fairly quickly: as we all know, they love nothing more than a good sex scandal ...