• New York Observer, Thursday, June 1, 2006 11:45 AM

Joe Conason of the New York Observer tears into recent in-depth “coverage” of the marriage of Bill and Hillary Clinton: “Of all possible explanations for the mainstream media’s preoccupation with the Clinton marriage, the most innocuous is nostalgia for a better time, when we were able to worry less about war, corruption, catastrophe and incompetence, and more about sex,” he writes. “Bad news only intensifies the urge to ignore reality and focus on triviality--a predilection seemingly shared by several of America’s most important journalists, as well as a legion of mindless tabloid hacks.”

Conason refers to recent pieces on the state of their union in the New York Times and by columnist David Broder and says “this episode reveals less about the Clintons than about the decaying culture of Washington journalism. Like the Bourbons, the Washington press corps forgets nothing, forgives nothing and learns nothing. They remain utterly oblivious to their own mean-spirited hypocrisy.”

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