The line on NPR this AM was that, if convicted, it would be a Federal Felony (transport over state lines, money laundering, or something) and thus he would be unable to serve in public office. But this is obviously just a rationalization of the fact that salacious tidbits like this make very good news, especially when they are about lilywhite defenders of the public interest. Like Larry Craig, (or even the recent stuff about McCain) it's all about the narrative into which the personal crime can be introduced as a fall from grace, a deviation from stated personal goals or public persona. It is a very short story, with little overall coverage except at the revelation of the scandal and then at its resolution (if a crime: a trial, judgement, etc.), when, for instance, Matthew McConaughey, Willie Nelson, or Cheech Marin get busted for possession: that is what the narrative about these stoners predicts. Likewise, when Sarkozy divorces and his new wife poses nude, or Rudy Guliani lives in a home with mistress and wife, why should we protest: they are red blooded men, after all, and have discovered a way to buck the norm to which only the ubermensch can aspire. How can we expect them to be different?
On the other hand, it also makes following the story somehow of public significance, which, for the most part, it really isn't--or at least it isn't any more than the average John implicated in a prostitution ring, or, as you point out, the average politician. But aside from that, we can brand this story about a sex scandal as being a "political" above-the-fold kind of story. The revision from the Clinton years of the old mantra "if it bleeds it leads" being "with cumstains, the viewer remains"--but it is only so often that the mainstream press can follow this relentlessly: one needs a good, journalistic reason to exploit sex for ratings.
What is so fabulous about the coverage of these kinds of stories is that there will be endless on air discussion that will begin (as the NPR segment this morning) with the caveat, "now we really don't know any facts about the case, but..." The investigation is mostly being done by the Feds and the coverage is unlikely to produce anything more in the way of new information about the case, except as it is released by people doing the actual investigation. But the trial has already begun and the main goal is to search for any shred of apparently new evidence with which the latest target of the "circular circulation of news" can be implicated in the scandal. Under the pretext of public service, the autonomy of the journalistic field can operate more freely than it can when it is merely talking about Lindsay or Brittany: then the attempt of bottom feeding paparazzi to get the latest scoop becomes ever more widespread, much to the pleasure of those who sell the news (or the audience for news to advertisers).
The endless interviews of Spitzer, his wife, George Fox, and possibly even the escort herself from an undisclosed location, not to mention various arbiters of moral and political truth in the guise of experts, is both a substitute for any actual revelation of facts and the bait for us to continue watching the spectacle unfold. The tediously drawn out, repetitious character of this is not any different than the way the story unfolds in the average soap opera, except that it isn't entirely fiction and depends to a certain extent on the periodic rewards of world events: still, like its equally contrived daytime drama, its pace is just to help really involve us in the emotional contours of personal downfall, to help us internalize completely how we feel about Spitzer and his "Bijoux indiscrets." It is the feeling that keeps us from switching the channel between the segments of the news and, for those unsatisfied with only this depth of involvement, keeps us seeking ever more information (and hence multiple page views) on the interwebs. It's a win-win situation: people who hate Spitzer get to watch him crash and burn; those who cover it get to believe they are actually, for once, performing a public duty that will also ingratiate them to their profit hungry masters; and everyone else gets to endlessly talk about sex (in that productive Foucauldian way), watch TV about sex, even surf the internet about sex, without admitting they are doing it because it is about sex. Those who hope to happen upon a youtube video of him getting blown by a hooker may be disappointed, but it doesn't hurt (media owners) for them to keep looking: that is what they would call "the gravy."
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