Andrew Sullivan has an interesting essay on the ‘gotcha’ attitude in contemporary journalism and politics. Here’s the denouement:

“… critics are increasingly leery of taking on politicians for

deep, real reasons and try to nail them for minor ones instead. Is Michael Portillo

gay? Did Karl Rove sell his Intel stock in time? How much did Hillary Clinton pay

for her New York office? Did George W. Bush once get busted for DUI? How

much did Bill Clinton pay for his haircut on the LAX runway? Did former President

Bush really not know what a checkout scanner was? Did Al Gore say he invented

the Internet? Did Clarence Thomas rent porn videos? At best, these issues

illustrate deeper worries about the people involved. But such worries would be

better expressed directly. Let’s discuss whether Portillo is too liberal; Rove, too

close to corporate America; or the Clintons, deeply corrupt; and so on. These are

the real issues and the real scandals. Too often, the mini-distractions are simply

ways to wound people for partisan or personal gain.

The same goes for administration nominees. I think New York Senator Charles

E. Schumer was on the mark when he argued this week in The New York Times

that the Democrats should scrutinize Bush’s judicial appointees’ ideology rather

than look for petty little scandals or minor gaffes in their paper trails. Perhaps it’s

because, as a culture, we have grown so leery of wholesale demonstrations of

ideology–everyone’s for bipartisanship now–that we often miss the ideological

forest for the ethical trees. I’m not saying we should ignore petty instances of

corruption. I’m saying they have become the central way we debate our

differences. This doesn’t merely trivialize our politics. It robs it of real meaning.”