Prediction: No future American president will weather his/her administration without some sort of scandal.

One of the questions regular folk have been asking recently is along the lines of, "why did the media spend so much time covering the Michael Jackson trial, and so little time covering more important stories?"  And the answer appears to have been, "because that's the story that generated ratings."  Let us never forget that newspapers, television news shows, and radio shows are in the business of generating revenue.  They require viewership and readership to stay afloat.

What does that have to do with the president, you ask?  Americans love scandals, that's what.  The media spends countless time and money covering the ridiculously unimportant "Runaway bride" and Jacko stories because that's apparently what people want to see.  Legitimate media cover celebrity relationships almost as much as the tabloids.  Who is Lindsay Lohen dating this week?

This is why the country will never have another presidency pass without scandal.  Hell, we love scandal so much we even tried to dig one up on John Kerry, and he wasn't even president yet!  I suppose we needed to have all the bases covered, in case he won.  Clinton had Monica Lewinsky (no pun intended).  Bush has Iraq and the missing WMD's.  No matter how big or small, every president will be exposed from now on ... because gee whiz, what's more exciting than The President of the United States caught lying and cheating!?  This is also why someone like John Kerry could never really get elected: too boring.  The public couldn't smell scandal on him, he wasn't dynamic enough.

Politicians are celebrities now.  And they know it.  Which is how we arrive at Arnold Schwarzenegger elected as governor of California.  If you're a celebrity, you're in.  If you attract scandal, you're in.  If you simply want to put your head down and get to work, you're out.

People give a lot of lip service towards "hard work", but they don't really believe in it.  They don't practice it, and they don't reward it when it appears.  They'd rather sit on the couch and hear about the latest celebrity scandal.  The bigger the celebrity, or the bigger the scandal, the better.