It's a Tab Tale! Arnie Vanishes!!

One of the less ennobling secrets of the mainstream media in recent years is its reliance on the tabloid press to launder seedy but irresistible stories about celebrities and politicians. Once the story is baptized in the tabloids, it's not long before it's fodder for TV talking heads and late-night comics. Then, more often than not, it's regarded as fair game for the elite media.

This symbiotic wash cycle went into high gear during the O.J. Simpson trial, and it was commonplace in time for Clinton's impeachment (with added suds from tab-like Web sites like the Drudge Report). Gennifer Flowers and Dick Morris both made a splash in the tabs before hitting the mainstream.

So there was a reasonable expectation that the tabloids would be having a field day with candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger. After all, in his 1977 Oui interview he spoke of his vast sexual conquests and a predilection for orgies; a Premiere magazine article in 2001 depicted him as an aggressive womanizer and a bully; and the same year, the National Enquirer "documented" his alleged seven-year affair with a young actress. Given the film community buzz about his vanity, marital woes and plastic surgery, it seemed the tabs would be wallowing in their good fortune.

All of which has made Schwarzenegger's tabloid disappearing act something of a mystery. Last week, the San Jose Mercury News turned over a few pieces of the puzzle when it reported that, in January, Schwarzenegger's mentor and early business partner, Joe Weider, had sold his publishing empire -- including Muscle and Fitness, Shape and Men's Fitness magazines -- for $350 million to American Media, the tabloid conglomerate that owns the Enquirer, the Star, the Globe and the News of the World.

The story also disclosed that although American Media's tabloids had been virtually "Arnold-free" since the recall race began, they just published a 120-page glossy one-off titled "Arnold, the American Dream," without identifying it as one of their publications. It's on newsstands for $4.95, and one cover line reads: "Camelot's Future." To complete the coronation, the News of the World ran an "exclusive": "Alien backs Arnold for governor!"

On another front, the New York Daily News reported that American Media owner and CEO David Pecker had assured Weider that the tabloids were going to "lay off" Schwarzenegger. "We're not going to pull up any dirt on him," Weider said Pecker told him. (American Media spokesman Richard Valvo calls the conversation "unfounded rumor"; Weider reconfirmed it Wednesday.)