Matti Vanhanen on Papers

If you live in Finland, you probaply have noticed the hurricane our prime minister is going thru. To go thru highlights:

• Vanhanen was normal representative of Centre-Party in the parlament, of which very few had heard of before he rose to the highest seat in the realm after the previous PM had to step down because of scandal, about memos of Finland's role with USA in War With Terror. There was some question, was the way she got them legal (she got them thru "backdoor", even though she apparently had the security clearance to ask and get them officially).
  
• After Vanhanen got the seat, the papers told how he was loving father who lived about 50 km's north of Helsinki in house he himself had build. Though the PM-status came with big house in the city, he refused it in favor of the smaller (but still rather big) house he himself had constructed. Absolutist, he invited Foreign Minister of Russia to his kitchen to drink orange juice.
  
• Then it comes up that he and his wife are getting a divorce. They do it calmly, refusing to tell media what is the reason behind it is. Some suspected that the long hours of the hard job is the cause. The ex-couple is still seen together, with and without children.
  
• Vanhanen announces he will be taking part in the presidential election next year. Though candinates are many, the three "important one's" are Halonen (Social Democrats, current president), Niinistö (Coalition Party, former finance minister who know holds some position in EU bank), and Vanhanen, who enjoys public trust and is in the polls near behind Halonen.
  
• Trash magazines start to throw up rumours that the reason behind divorce is another woman. First its hinted its Tanja Karpela, former Miss Finland, who also has place in the current administration as Minister of Culture. They are said to have slept together at least once in hotel room. Vanhanen admits he was in the room, but says they were talking about politics.
  
• Few weeks after that, the King of Trash Papers, Seitsemän Päivää (Seven Days), usually called 'Seiska' starts the first part of classic two-parter, where "Kaarina" (name altered and face blurred), tells of her sex-relationship to Vanhanen. Vanhanen refuses to answer, saying that the divorce is painful subject to him and he and his soon-to-be-ex-wife have deal of not spreading their lifes to papers. The papers got a fieldday with his "I dont admid, I dont deny" answer he gave to the papers. Suprisingly, yellow press makes big articles with the Seiska's stories, even though they are not grounded in any facts.
  

Most finns dont care one way or another about Vanhanen's sexual life, as long as he does his job well. Most serious papers are either refusing to comment on the whole subject, while others are ridiculing the whole mess ('why does "Kaarina's" name have quote-marks around it? Its typical for Seiska's "journalism"). The only place where I have seen paper encouraging Vanhanen to take stand in the subject, was Metro, where old, retired reporter wrote in her column that she wanted to know - that not knowing hurt Vanhanen's imago.

Seeing as there is no proof this story is true - other than the word of Seiska, that dosent have that much weight (in past it has been shown that they sometimes are themselves behind their own stories) - it's probaply just way to to throw dirt at Vanhanen, who was pretty spotless before hand.

I am mostly amazed that evening papers take such interest in the subject. At the same time, London reports of second bombing attempt, and it gets burried on behalf of alleged extra-marrial relationships of PM before he became PM. It should be easy to see which of the subjects is the more important. Let the man have his peace. Would think that the reporters of the papers in question would be ashamed of themselves. Is this why they went to the uni for four years in a row, just to make two page-articles about some scandal, developed by Seiska that isint probaply even true?