We're still in the ditch, and the Gennifer Flowers story about Bill Clinton says it all. A tabloid fired several bullets into the air, and the rest of the herd began to stampede.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
It was at the beginning of all this tabloid frenzy. Our garbage was being gone through, and we were involved in all these chases getting home, and people camping out on our property to get pictures.
People get up, they go to work, they have their lives, but you'll never see the headlines say, 'Six billion people got along rather well today.' You'll have the headline about the 30 people who shot each other.
Some people are probably scratching their heads and saying, How did that happen? That's because some of the media didn't give the public the full story.
The Beltway media went into caroming-off-the-walls hysterics over Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, whipping itself into a flaming casserole even as Clinton's standing with the American people remained upright and firm, so to speak.
Most writers spend their lives standing a little apart from the crowd, watching and listening and hoping to catch that tiny hint of despair, that sliver of malice, that makes them think, 'Aha, here is the story.'
The crowd, still shouting, gives way before us. We plough our way through. Women hold their aprons over their faces and go stumbling away. A roar of fury goes up. A wounded man is being carried off.
What has happened to America's survival instincts?
It's getting hard to keep up with all of the news from Washington - witch hunts, conspiracy theories and Republicans tearing each other apart over who is ideologically pure and who is apostate. It's a real set of carnival sideshows.
Rumors of the American demise... have been greatly exaggerated.
Right after the tragedy, President Bush asked Americans to get on with their lives and we did.