Quelle Scandal!

A few mornings back, the morning show folks on the radio gave a little quiz: Charlie Sheen versus Muammar Gaddafi quotes. The idea was to try and determine which crazy person said what. Not the least of these was "The US commission report on 9/11 was 'an absolute fairytale, a complete work of fiction.'" If you've been following the media circuses that surrounds these two rock stars from Mars, then you know this came out of the mouth of the son of U.S. President Martin Sheen. It made me think about how much press you can attract if you really are just plain loco.
Sure, there's an occasional story here and there about some upstanding citizen who made good choices and fought the good fight. Those are the exception. What we really want to know about, or perhaps what the media powers that be want to tell us about are the borderline cases and the aberrant behavior. Come to think of it, I didn't really need to see pictures of Oregon congressman David Wu in a tiger suit. I am also still scouring my retinas of the image of a shirtless Representative from New York who happens to have the same name as one of my favorite Draculas. I knew it couldn't be the same Christopher Lee, since I'm pretty sure he has an extra nipple.
It's all so very tawdry, really. Lindsay Lohan spends more time in jail and rehab than movie sets and we seem to like it that way. Brett Favre's legacy will not end with an interception, but with an incomplete pass. And then there's Brandon Davies, star of Brigham Young's basketball program who was bounced from the team for having consensual sex with his girlfriend. Apparently this is a violation of BYU's honor code. Congratulations, Brandon. You made the news because you told the truth. But that won't get you your own line of shoes or reality TV show. Alas.