>Aside from all this, I think the press has reacted abysmally to this whole
>incident (or series of incidents). Every time any news program gives a report
>on the President/Lewinsky/Starr mess I either hit the mute or turn to another
>channel or stop watching TV.
The behavior of the press in this fits perfectly with the model that Bourdieu lays out in On Television <http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/Why_TV_sucks.html>. The media people think that this is what the public wants, all evidence to the contrary - but they always project their own interests onto the public, and insist they're just feeding the demand. Why do the media love this so? Because it's about nothing serious, and because it allows various media outlets to compete for utterly bogus "scoops." They can look bold, original, and investigative, but it's not about anything really significant. Of course, they could be looking into the sexual politics aspects of the affair, but they're not; that would require thought, time, and a critical stance towards the status quo.
Doug