Scandals

The recent political scandals seem to be gaining steam.  I still haven't paid enough attention to know whether any or all of them are worthy of the attention.  They would each be a big deal if mostly true, but I don't know that to be the case.

i do have an observation about how scandals play with the public, however.  The early Clinton scandals were mostly confined to the political class.  The general public would pause over things like Travelgate, Filegate, Whitewatergate (perhaps we are finally done with -gates now) and move on, unexcited.  True or not true, none of those were going to take over the popular conversation.  With help from the media, some scandals can be buried, some inflated; but there is a limit to that.

Vince Foster's suicide came into the national consciousness because there were additional suspicions that it wasn't a suicide. That seemed unlikely right from the start, and ended up having only leftover bits of odd items to support it, so it went away.  That obscured the real scandal of Webb Hubbel and Hillary Clinton denying the FBI access to his office until they had cleansed it.  Ridiculously wrong, but even had there been no homicide conspiracy sucking up all the oxygen, it might not have become the scandal on everyone's lips that the Republicans felt was deserved. The political class cares about the jockeying that goes on around that sort of scandal, because there are alliances to observe and impressions to manage.  And sometimes, they even care about the justice of the thing.

But when there was sex in the picture in the late 90's the game changed.  The general public suddenly cared, a lot.  The Republicans were thrilled, and as usual, misread the social signals.  The general public didn't care about the parts that Clinton's opponents thought were most important.  (I'm not sure his allies got it right at first, either.) Lying to the camera was fascinating for a couple of days.  Possible lies to other parts of the government had some juice, but only about a C+.  Sex held the attention.  Blood, actual courtrooms, violence, and money are also pretty reliable if you are trying to get the public's attention.

How does this apply today?  Scandals have one level of interest in the partisan press, whether accusing or denying.  It takes another level of interest to force the legacy media to cover scandals - which seems to have been reached.  To get to the next level of national interest there must be other factors that catch the imagination.  Government spying might qualify.  Dead Americans from the State Department is a more likely hook, though if it were tourists or military it would go even higher.  People aren't all that aware of State from day-to-day and have only vague notions what embassies are for.  The IRS is something people are familiar with and will pay a bit of attention to.  The Republicans (and likely some Democratic presidential aspirants) want these to go to the next level.  They should remember that if they do, the narrative changes.  The general public is not going to be interested in the things they are "supposed" to.

It's rather like taking a child to the zoo and trying to get him to look at one of the few Asian vultures in captivity, and failing to get that point across because one of the rhinos is pooping just now.