This weekend's feature in the Sunday New York Times magazine told us a lot about the state of political journalism. Bottom line? It's style over substance. In fact, it's no longer even close -- style wins in a rout.

The Times' Frank Bruni wrote the velvety soft, 5,200-word profile of the unlikely Massachusetts senator. What I found interesting was how the article opened by detailing a Saturday Night Live skit about Brown, his centerfold spread in Cosmopolitan when Brown was 22, the pick-up truck Brown (symbolically) drove around the state during the campaign, and the family story about how Brown showed up on his first date with his future wife wearing pink leather shorts.

Combined, Bruni spent the first 15 paragraphs, and more than 1,200 words, on those very light items.

As for what Brown stands for politically in terms of his agenda and what he ran on in his campaign, Bruni was much less interested in that. In fact, this was one of the very few paragraphs that even addressed that bothersome issue [emphasis added]:

But the campaign also showed Brown to be diligent, patient and shrewd. He embraced all of the hand-shaking and barnstorming that Coakley seemed averse to. If he wasn't particularly eloquent in explaining why he opposed federal health care legislation modeled largely on a Massachusetts measure he supported, he nonetheless made it through interviews and debates without any outsize flubs. And his campaign advisers and legislative colleagues in Massachusetts say that he had a keener grasp of what was going on in the Massachusetts electorate than they did — that he in particular recognized many voters' qualms with Congress and their readiness, once again, for a fresh, unconventional face.

Oh my.

In the final days of his campaign, Brown's candidacy centered around the fact that his victory would help stymie Obama's health care push in the U.S. senate. But it turns out Brown supported a very similar health care push for Massachusetts. According to Bruni, Brown wasn't even eloquent in explaining the glaring inconsistency. But in the end that didn't matter because in interviews and in debates, Brown didn't make any outsize flubs.

Other than, y'know, flip-flopping on the central issue of health care reform.