Well someone accomplished their goal over the past 2 days...

[salin]

it should have been gone-zales gone-zales gone-zales. There are so many huge implications regarding his resignation (and timing). But now the news was - within 10 hours completely taken over by the Craig story - that somehow took weeks to get to the media. Perhaps the timing is coincidence... but somehow, I don't buy it. Someone had info and got it into the news pipeline at the poltiically opportune time to try to negate the attention to the Gone-zales resignation.

And it seems acutely effective in the liberal blogsphere and DU. Just look at the preponderance of the number of threads - look at the divisiveness being spread rather than unified digging, sniping and strutting at the forced resignation of Alberto.

In the long run, I believe that the Gonzales story is MUCH more serious with potential long-term effects. But the Craig thing is salacious - and the general public loves salacious.

Funny that there are many voices bemoaning the over attention of the salacious news obsessions when it involves stories like a missing white woman - but we don't recognize our own tendency for the salacious and obsessions with it when it comes to a story like Senator Craig.

I admit - I was sucked into the absurdity of Craig's initial statements yesterday in the first hour that I read the story... but then the focus came back, for me, as to what does the whole Gonzo resignation *mean* and what happens next. This should be the news focus, and the political blogosphere focus - it is a big, no - HUGE - deal. And yet ... it doesn't dominate our attention or imagination (or investigative digging) due to this distraction. Surely that is the intended effect the action of whoever leaked the Craig story (and waited for a good time to do so) to Roll Call.

Other news items that would have likely gotten a lot of attention have also been pushed off the proverbial front page. Indeed a fried (of mine and to DU) pointed out to me earlier today a story that I missed - and that under other circumstances would have gotten major media attention and discussion. One of the downed helicopters in Iraq over the past couple of days - killed three (? all? most?) servicepeople who were witnesses in one of the cases of charged murder of Iraqi civilians. Yep - the witnesses all parished - and we don't notice or even speculate...

While the Sen Craig story is compelling from the hypocracy angle - it does not add up to the seriousness (in terms of national and perhaps international implications) of some other developments of the last day or two. Can we, as a community, get refocused on the big picture and focus on some of those stories with more intensity? Can we add our comments/thoughts/etc. per the Craig story to threads that exist rather than starting tons more? Seriously - the Gone-zales resignation is HUGE and its now being drowned out by this salacious - but not as potentially significant in the very long run story - can we strip whoever leaked the story (timing - this is all about timing) the satisfaction of having run such a huge distraction to the resignation (and the 'let the dominoes in the admin start to fall story-line that seems to be a natural storyline to be dominating a left-leaning politivcal board)?

[lonestarnot]

1. Hasn't worked for me. Sorry.

[soothsayer]

2. mike vick needs to bite gonzo for gonzo to be newsworthy

for most folks.

[calimary]

3. Yeah, salaciousness trumps all. But hey, at least it's something icky

happening directly to one of THEM, NOT one of US. It just boils down to that for me. As long as it's ANYBODY in the enemy camp, I'm okay with it. Certainly you're correct that the gonzales issue is FAR more grave in terms of what that bastard and his cohorts have done to our Justice Department, our Constitution, our alleged respect for the rule of law. That whole sordid business is FAR more serious. But I don't expect anyone in lowest-common-denominatorville to resonate with such matters of great consequence (that mostly go over their heads anyway since the sides they take and the way they vote tend to suggest that they don't pay much attention to what's going on). If sex scandals are the way to screw the bad guys, SO BE IT.

WHATEVER is bad for them (and at this point I don't give a flying fuck WHAT it is) winds up being good for the rest of us.

[scarletwoman]

4. Excellent post. Thank you. It's the "shiny object of the day" syndrome. (nt)

[valerief]

5. You nailed it. nt

[grasswire]

6. amazing how that always happens, isn't it?

If it isn't a plane crash, it's a sex story.

Karl is such a lucky man.

[MADem]

7. Naaaah. Not true. Gonzo ain't gone yet. He's here until the seventeenth of Sept.

We get to do it all over again, soon. And AGAIN, when his replacement is chosen and has to go before the Senate for a little grilling.

If the Craig business was released as cover, the timing sucked. See, it wasn't. Sometimes, as Freud says, a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes, a political story is just a political story. Without any agenda beyond that.