As an admittedly imprecise metric, consider that between January 8, when the story broke nationally, and January 17, CNN mentioned “Chris Christie” more than 500 times on the air. MSNBC mentioned the governor around 850 times. He merited just 300 mentions on Fox News. None of the networks had mentioned him more than 35 times from December 30 to January 7.

Even the Left grew tired of the coverage. The Daily Kos hit MSNBC for its 24-hour-a-day Christie-mania. Even Bill Maher tweaked the network, writing a Valentine’s Day message to Maddow & Co. on his blog that paid MSNBC the ultimate insult: “Look at yourself. You’re turning into Fox News. Bridgegate has become your Benghazi.”

Opting for wall-to-wall coverage of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, CNN eventually left Bridgegate behind. But MSNBC remained on the story.

Until Thursday, when sources revealed that the Bridgegate scandal was no national scandal at all.