"Frankly, when it comes to scandal, the sexual kind bothers me FAR less than the scandals of power, intrigue and manipulation."

They all bother me.


"I don't follow - Why does the Drudge phenomenom favor the Democrats?

You're right. You don't follow. Probably I didn't explain well enough. I should learn to be more succinct. Maybe you could have read it differently had you thought a possibility that my thinking might be rational. Who knows?

The Drudge phenomenon favored the Republicans in much the same way that the new "scandalproof" realization is favoring the Democrats. They are similar in that they changed the balance of power and they are similar in that they sort of "snuck up on" the scene and became huge political factors.

Up until the internet, the mainstream media could decide which stories to run with. Stories like Rostenkowski weren't sexy enough, but Drudge et al knew that they were real and mattered. When Drudge uncovered stories like that and others, the mainstream media pretty much had to follow suit or look silly (more to the point, they would lose the power they maintained by appearing "objective").

One other thought pops up that startles me: John Hardly says, "If (In) their defense, I think that it used to strike more Democrats as outrageous until the several years of holding out and spinning the story made the tide turn toward sympathy for Clinton.

What? That isn't the way it works, imo. Any perception of "Holding out and spinning" outrages people even more. In my opinion, it worked the other way in Clinton's case: The "several years" of very expensive pursuit and harassment with nothing to show for it in the end is what decent people were - and are- outraged about.

In the week that followed the initial story about Clinton and an unnamed intern, there were a few Democrats -- like Michigan's David Bonior -- who made statements like "If these stories are true, then the president should resign".

It took a while to reign in the sense of outrage at the possibility (as voiced by the Boniors of the party), and sow the seeds of doubt about the story long enough to get the Democrats to be more in line with one, common story -- the way they were going to deal with it.

Eventually they got away with the Clinton spin -- make the prosecutor the villain. That's how we see the story yet today. The victors, as ever, get to write history.

Time and spin made the Boniors of the party inconsequential.