It's not the crime...it's the tabloid headlines

For the record, I am not above being happy that Republicans are finally being called to account for something they did, and I do think covering up for a sexual predator, even one who appears not to have actually had sex with any of his victims or even tried very hard, is reprehensible and Hastert deserves to lose his rather enormous seat over all this.

But what is it with scandals with, at best, symbolic significance for most of us being the only ones the press is willing to notice?

The Bush-era Republicans lied us into a disastrous war and arguably committed crimes against the very idea of democracy in two presidential elections. And what finally blows up in their faces? A scandal with no broader policy implications whatsoever.

Richard Nixon waged secret war in Laos and Cambodia; the man committed multiple war crimes. So what brought him down? An incompetent burglary. A political petty trick.

I guess I'm saying, I just wish the American press was more interested in doing the people's business than in writing entertaining headlines.