Not politics, just some old-fashioned media criticism. Here’s the front page of today’s New York Post:

Really? C’mon… really?

The Post has been running wild with Weiner puns in headlines the last couple of weeks, which makes a lot of sense. The man’s surname is Weiner, and that’s also a nickname for the body part he Tweeted. Many of them have been pretty funny, at least if you’re as immature as I am and you still find weiner jokes hilarious.

But I find this offensive. Not because of the content of the headline or what it suggests — I could hardly care less about that — but because I have, in the past, been paid to write headlines. And look at the article to which the headline is attached. It’s about Barack Obama saying he would resign if he were in Anthony Weiner’s position. (Ed. note: Ha, weiner’s position.)

The verb “to beat” has a variety of meanings, but none of them describe what Obama did to Weiner yesterday. If Obama had bested Weiner in a footrace, physically struck the embattled congressman, performed on a drum a rhythmic pattern known as “the weiner,” or, hell, Tweeted inappropriate photos more impressive than Weiner’s, the headline would fit the actions detailed in the associated story.

But though I hardly follow politics, as far as I know none of those things happened yesterday. And if the headline writers at the Post were really committed to the particular allusion they ran with this morning, it would have been less of a stretch to use “OBAMA SPANKS WEINER,” though the connection would still be tenuous at best. Since Obama’s words could be construed as scolding the congressman, and when parents… oh, you get it.

Long story short, these punks at the Post have a long way to go before they can touch “Romanian Impresses with Apparatus Showing.”