Carrie Prejean

The biggest nonstory of the week, however, was the case of Perez Hilton versus Carrie Prejean, who represented California in the Miss USA pageant Sunday. Hilton (ne Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr.) is a blogger and TV personality who made his name by posting snarky comments on photos of tabloid celebrities, outing gay celebrities and calling attention to homophobic actions or remarks made by celebrities.

Prejean answered: "Well, I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And you know what, in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anyone out there, but that's how I was raised, and that's how I think it should be between a man and a woman."

Never mind that Prejean, a Christian, didn't seem terribly invested in seeing her beliefs legislated. As she stood in the high-wattage, 15-minute glare that illuminates nonstories everywhere, she became the newest poster girl for the sanctity of heterosexual marriage. As for Hilton, in attempting to strike down his enemy, he managed to empower her.

No, my guess is that the saga of the blogger and the beauty queen managed to crystallize everything that's irritating about "news" today. It combined pseudo-celebrities, Twitter, political sanctimony, inarticulateness and Internet-enabled vulgarity and dressed it up as the latest battle in the culture wars. We weren't embracing the story; we grabbed on to it to shake it by the shoulders and smack it in the face. Somehow, though, all we managed to do was allow it to rub itself -- repeatedly -- in our faces.