If an MSM celebrity is caught in a park with a rope around his genitals, and the MSM doesn’t report it, does the story get around?

Along with many other people, I’ve long suspected that CNN’s hyperactive global business correspondent Richard Quest was on drugs, and sure enough he is.

Judging by Quest’s on-screen demeanour, I’ve also long suspected that he has a rope permanently tied around his neck, concealed under his clothing and with the other end tied around his genitals.

Turns out that’s true as well. Under the headline Kinky News Network, the New York Post reports:

CNN personality Richard Quest was busted in Central Park early yesterday with some drugs in his pocket, a rope around his neck that was tied to his genitals, and a sex toy in his boot, law-enforcement sources said.

Quest, 46, was arrested at around 3:40 a.m. after a cop spotted him and another man inside the park near 64th Street, a police source said.

The criminal complaint against Quest said the park was closed at the time - something Quest should have known because of all the signs saying "Park Closed 1 a.m. to 6 a.m."

Quest was initially busted for loitering, the source said. Aside from the oddly configured rope, the search also turned up a sex toy inside of his boot, and a small bag of methamphetamine in his left jacket pocket.

It wasn't immediately clear what the rope was for.

Can we infer from that that it was immediately clear what the sex toy was for?

The reports adds:

Quest's lawyer, Alan Abramson, had a much more innocuous version of events.

"Mr. Quest didn't realize that the park had a curfew," Abramson said. He was simply "returning to his hotel with friends."

The New York tabloids and the blogs are having a field day with this. But CNN, along with the rest of the networks that are signed up to the MSM’s own version of the Hitler/Stalin pact, are either playing down the story or ignoring it altogether.

CBS and ABC have brief reports buried in their showbiz sections, while CNN and MSNBC have nothing. Their reporters are presumably too busy chasing stories about politicians and celebrities being busted for things like drug possession and kinky sex.

Quest is, of course, free to get his kicks however and wherever he wants (within the constraints of the law - and I'm sorry, but 'Park Closed' means 'Park Closed').

And I for one am not going to take the cheap shot of demanding that the MSM applies its usual standards of scrutiny to one of its own.

From the sound of it, it seems that Quest may already have tried to hoist himself by his own petard.

Update: Thanks to Kate and Rusty for linking.

And for the benefit of any pedants making a beeline for the comments form, I know what 'petard' means. I just had to explain the joke word by word to the editor of a well-known web round-up mailing from a well-known US newspaper, and when you spell it out it doesn't seem so funny.