What can we learn from RFK's 'erotic poetry'? That Americans need to get better at enjoying a scandal | Marina Hyde

Literally nothing on this earth takes itself as seriously as American journalism. There are rogue-state dictators it’s more permissible to laugh at than the endlessly hilarious pretensions of newsmen and newswomen in the United States. The crucial difference between the British press and US press is that at least we in the British press know we’re in the gutter. The Americans have always imagined – and so loudly – that they are involved in some kind of higher calling. Guys, I love you and stuff, but get over it, because you’re missing one of the great jokes of the century. Yourselves.

I don’t deny that everything’s bigger in America. Our former health secretary had a knee-trembler up against his office door in the pandemic; their current one apparently wrote felching … poetry, is it – felching poetry? – to a superstar journalist who was worrying about his brainworm, yet the story is being written up like it’s Dante, instead of X-rated Italian brainrot.

We are, by the way, talking about the tale of Olivia Nuzzi, Ryan Lizza and Robert F Kennedy. If you’ve missed this one, you have a great treat in store. Olivia and Ryan were hotshot political journalists (and a couple) covering presidential campaigns and writing a joint book about the 2020 one, when Ryan discovered last year that Olivia had had what is primly described as a “digital affair” with wingnut presidential candidate RFK. It all blew up, there was some legal hokey-cokey, they lost their jobs, she fled to LA, RFK became health secretary. He’s got bigger brainworms to fry; the other two are now “breaking their silence”.

And everything – everything – about it is darkly hysterical. It should obviously be being written as comedy. Instead, the story is being chronicled with maximum portentousness by its own protagonists. Firstly, in Nuzzi’s forthcoming memoir/state-of-the-nation something-or-other, which is actually entitled American Canto. And secondly in Lizza’s Substack, which is genuinely called Telos. I can’t.

No, hang on – I can. Like so many of the self-regarding big-hitters of the US fourth estate, this sundered pair very much need you to know that serious prose is occurring. Both of them adore a sledgehammer metaphor. With Lizza, it’s bamboo. The bamboo in the couple’s apartment courtyard “had become a metaphor for our decade-long entanglement”. Righto. “If not tamed, [it] would march through the entire courtyard and kill everything.” Thanks for flagging, mate. “I spent hours hacking at the sprouts to keep the bamboo at bay, just as I had with all the secrets that Olivia and I shared.” Is there much more of this? Yes, would seem to be the answer. “I should have known that it was futile and that, at some point, the bamboo would take over the garden, and that’s all anyone would see.” Come on Ryan, batter me round the head with the bamboo analogy one more time – I’m so close to getting the point.

With Nuzzi, it’s wildfires. She flees to LA after the RFK story breaks, staking down seemingly dozens of signposts to where we are going as the burning takes hold. “10:30 a.m., 10 acres burning. 10:50 a.m., 20 acres burning … 2 p.m., 700 acres burning. 3 p.m., 1,300 acres burning … 12:30 a.m., 3,000 acres burning. 9 a.m., 5,000 acres burning. 11:45 a.m., 12,000 acres burning. 1:30 p.m., 16,000 acres burning … 9 p.m., 20,000 acres burning. 8 a.m., 22,000 acres burning. 4 p.m., 24,000 acres burning.” OK GOT IT. Luckily, because we’re literary dumbos, Nuzzi has already explained: “You cannot outrun your life on fire.” Makes u think. Could we have some crossover metaphor event where the bamboo catches fire? Maybe for Black Friday.

With heavy heart, apparently, the wider US media must cover the tale, yet not even America’s dainty journalese can rob the story of its full-spectrum trash merriment. In fact, in some cases it adds to it. Nuzzi’s lawyer told the New York Times his client would “not dignify efforts to impugn her character with any future response”. Dialling in from an Edith Wharton novel, there. I believe the felching poetry dropped a couple of days later.

It’s so sad that, across American newsrooms, hankies must be overtly pressed to noses about all this, while refresh keys can only be covertly pressed to see if any more has dropped. Pretty much the only splashy thing Vanity Fair has done under its new editorship was hire Nuzzi as West Coast editor and run her book extract, so it should be absolutely zero surprise to learn that, as a result of something they read in Telos – again, “Telos”!!! – the magazine is reviewing the appointment. “We were taken by surprise,” intoned a Vanity Fair spokeswoman, “and we are looking at all the facts.” For heaven’s sake, buck up and stop being so absolutely wet. This sort of thing is why you hired her. Just own it and allow yourself a bit of fun.

Alas, they seem bent on playing it like they’re in the midst of some boring ethics crisis, when you can’t help feeling that ship has sailed. May we humble outsiders offer a word of advice? Guys, you just need to stop being so American and serious about it all. And, indeed, about America. God knows we lesser countries have put some ghastly people in charge ourselves, but you do have to allow your international underlings the occasional cackle at the fact that in your great nation, Donald Trump has now become president, twice. When you lot shit the bed, the whole world has to lie in it – so do at least have the delicacy to realise that once dignity has gone, a good laugh is how the rest of us get by. Come along and join us: you’ll like it if you try it.

• Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist