SI Advance almost covers a news story

Since Congress is on vacation, the Advance logically figures there is no Congressional news (and or investigative reporting) for it to cover. Therefore they take the next logical step and write about a tshirt company, selling tshirts;

Do you love Rep. Vito Fossella?

If so, now there's a way for you to show it outside the voting booth: An "I Love Vito Fossella" shirt.

The article, like our war in Iraq goes on, and notes it eventually notes that some company is making tshirts with the names of somewhat famous people on them. Get this, they have a shirt with Vito Fossella's name on it. Eventually after several paragraphs of fluff promoting people's obvious love of Rep. Fossella they mention no one has actually bought one of these tshirts. And thus they neatly wrap up the article.

Not just is this news, this is courageous reporting. Anyone can come along and write about our troops, or traffic congestion, or massive federal debt and/or budget deficits, poverty, rapid transit, etc. But it is rare that a reporter manages to ignore all of that and kiss ass to the extent they have in this article and clearly recognize the boundaries of balancing the communities interest with offering free publicity for an elected official, and they completely bypass those boundaries.

The more I think about it, I have a question for Rob Hart (this certainly is no Tom Wrobloeski article). You fail to mention how you found out about this "tshirt company" so in your appropriate follow up where you apologize for your failed journalistic integrity please expound on how this story came across your desk, least we assume this is nothing more than free advertising from Rep. Fossella's office that you obliged in printing.

update
A hat tip to a reader that points out that the article says;

If a Web surfer stumbles across it -- through a random Internet search, say, as happened with the Advance -- and shares the sentiment for Staten Island's congressman, he or she can order one.