Patrick Kennedy and the Media In Perspective

The last few days, almost all I've heard about is Congressman Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, son of Senator Ted Kennedy, and his car accident.

Newsworthy? Yeah. But it's wa-aa-aa-aa-aa-aa-y out of proportion to its importance. I mean, a Kennedy abusing drugs or alcohol or involved in an accident is about as rare as Jennifer Lopez getting engaged divorced, or a congressman getting special treatment.

Imagine, however, if the media spent anywhere near this amount of time on:

• the Rumsfeld issue the other day where, when Rumsfeld was presented with the fact he had lied, they tried to make it sound unfortunate for the poor man that he was "heckled"
• the Downing Street memo
• Hookergate
• exactly how much Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff corrupted the process
• any of Bush, Cheney, or Rice's lies

And this is just a start.