I agree fully with Joshua Greeman on this:
Because, though we lack the single, suffocating, operatic Scandal to End All Scandals that dominated the Clinton years, we've never climbed down from our addiction to non-stop intrigue, from our craving for personal foibles and drama and, most of all, downfall.
In fact, more than a decade after Bill Clinton left office and Ken Starr returned to private practice, public discourse has never regained its breath. The national conversation is every bit as histrionic as it was back then. Only now, at least most of the time, there's no equivalent scandal to sustain it.
So we are left with ever-present outrage in search of something to be outraged about. We have a tone in search of a target.
We bounce from mini-scandal to mini-scandal, never losing our appetite for condemnation: John Ensign's affair. John Edwards' love child. Rahm Emanuel's use of the "r" word. Charlie Rangel's improprieties. Eric Massa's tickling. David Paterson's ethical lapses. Barack Obama's appointment of the brother of a Congressman to a judgeship. Something Harry Reid said. Something Nancy Pelosi said. Something Rush Limbaugh said. Something Van Jones said. Something John Roberts said. Something some birther we had never even heard of before said.
It isn't by chance that Arthur Miller's The Crucible is, in my opinion, the quintessential American play because it shows its obsessions with witch-hunt and witches to maintain its purity or to keep evil away. Unfortunately, America has exported successfully its love of political scandals and of outrage to the world. Sometimes, Americanization is not just bad, but also dangerous.
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