The revelation of Jack Kelley's fabrications has reached a critical mass. So many lies, coverups and doubts have been exposed as to invalidate his entire body of work.

Although the Kelley story is being extensively reported -- and with 700 stories to go through, there's probably material for more yet -- it's hardly garnered the attention that the Philip Glass or -- perhaps more tellingly, the Jayson Blair -- stories did.

In part, perhaps, it's because USAT hardly has the reputation that the Grey Lady does (unfairly, although USAT's improved hard-news position was in large part indebted to Kelley himself). In part, the press is burned out on stories of its own malfeasance. In part, Jayson Blair's race and youth made him a target, though in retrospect his sins probably didn't merit his being called a "comulsive [sic] liar, traitor and plagiarist" by Andrew Sullivan, or compared to "Joseph [sic] Mengele" by Slate's Jack Shafer.

Perhaps it's simply that many reporters have trouble believing that such a well-respected reporter lied about so many stories and plagiarized in so many others. He was on location, he had the contacts, and the news was happening all about him; yet he lied from nut graf to byline and beyond.

Kelley's fake reports are all the more important because of the international beat he covered. So far, he's lied about Palestinian suicide bombers, Cuban refugees, Bosnians and Serbs, Islamist madrassas, the hunt for al'Qaeda, Russian money-laundering, and Jewish-Israeli extremists. Compared to the pathetic lies of Blair, the gonzo creations of Glass, and the other examples of journalistic misconduct, Kelley towers amongst them like a god of lies.

I've argued before that nothing is so disreputable as a respected profession; when journalism became an A-list career for the sons and daughters of the Ivy League, their concern shifted from reporting the truth to maintaining their privileged position within their community -- a status that generally comes from hardening the conventional wisdom that passes for analysis amongst that community.

UPDATE: "You've got to live with yourself." Kelley on media ethics (and claiming to have been shot at "two or three hundred times" at the Newseum. (MP3 clip)