Mullings A Political Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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Sum, Sum, Summertime

Monday, July 9, 2001

In my very, very youth there was a modestly successful song by a group named "The Jamies" which had as its first six words: "It's summertime, summertime, sum, sum, summertime." Such was the depth of songwriting in 1962.

The chorus, by the way, was:
"It's time to head straight for them hills;
It's time to live and have some thrills."

For many years, I thought the first line went: "It's time to drink straight
buh-der-milk." Those "many years" totaled 39, including yesterday when I looked it up.

In Washington, in an odd-numbered year, you might as well head straight for them hills (or drink buttermilk for that matter) because there's not much going on.

Don't believe me? Consider these examples:

The President spent the weekend at the family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. The entire report from the press pool covering the President Friday night dealt with the trip to a restaurant, the wait during the meal, and the trip back to the compound. 608 words of the exact time of departure from Walker's Point (7:38 pm) , how many were at the table (12), and the breed, age and name of a dog wearing a Bush-Cheney campaign sign "like a saddle" (Great Dane, 1, Delilah) standing with her owners (Missy and Tom Robbins) across the street.

You don't get this anywhere else. For the complete lyrics to The Jamies' greatest hit as well as a nice picture of the Bush family go to the Secret Decoder Ring.

The cover story of Sports Illustrated this week is not the gripping tennis at Wimbledon, nor the Major League All-Star Game, nor even the news that we are now inside of two weeks from the opening of NFL training camps.

The cover story is entitled: "The 1972 Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders; Where are they now?"

Do you think some SI editor has been breathlessly waiting for the TWENTY-NINTH anniversary of the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders to run this story? I know there's a prime number joke in there somewhere.

The conventional wisdom in Washington is: News coverage has changed because of the 24-hour news cycle driven by the cable networks.

This, like most conventional wisdom, is almost - but not quite - correct.

What has changed is the need for the cable networks to find one story they can milk for days, or weeks, or months. They treat every story as if it MIGHT have long legs with the video equivalent of screaming headlines. If the story doesn't take hold, they move onto something else. But if it does, then they're in business.

Shortly after the Fox News Network went on the air, the TWA Flight 800 story got them off the ground with a multi-month run. The O.J. Trial was another long-running story on which everyone focused for months and months. Most recently, the Florida recount provided continuing fodder for the ever-hungry cable news maw.

The mother of all scandals - Clinton/Lewinsky - made entire careers.

In the good old days of the Clinton Administration, if you were named "Clinton" and you got caught "just lying about sex," your punishment was having to spend your summer vacation on Martha's Vineyard with Hillary. I know there's an 8th Amendment joke in there somewhere. Now comes the story of Congressman Gary Condit and the missing intern, Chandra Levy. Condit/Levy has exploded, like a comet into Jupiter, from a mildly interesting inside-the-Style-Section story, into a Gothic horror-mystery story requiring the full-time attention of all the cable news channels as well as serious reporters from major newspapers and news weeklies.

It is the perfect summer story:
  - A young woman has mysteriously disappeared.
  - A married Member of Congress is suspected of having sex with an intern,
sex with a flight attendant, and reportedly lots more sex with many
other job classifications.
  - The Congressman was not forthcoming to investigators about any of it.
  - There are reports of the FBI attempting to question the spouse but her
refusing to answer their knocks on her door.
  - There are dueling high-priced Washington lawyers.
  - And, there is a cover-up fueled by dribbled-out information from the
Congressman's staff much of it incorrect, incomplete, or
both.

The U.S. House, this week, is scheduled to take up Rep. Christopher Shays' (R-CT) Campaign Finance Reform bill which is the House version of McCain-Feingold. The national press will froth over it, editorialize in favor of it, and try to get its readers excited about it.

Watch the coverage on the cable political shows and see which leads: Campaign Finance or Condit.

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