No one denies that the trivial things in politics can often matter much more than policy. The problem with our political press today isn't simply that too often they focus on the trivial at the expense of any substance, it's that they regularly send the message that the trivial is what's important. Not to them, they claim, but it's what's important to the great unwashed. Who knows where the great unwashed who turn on the teevee and see very important journalists telling them about the stuff that matters could have gotten that crazy idea.
