The Imus Story is Over; The Wolfowitz Story is Buried Under It

Don't waste all your schadenfreude on Don Imus, even though the national media are wallowing in the story, more so since the I-man is no longer on the air to retaliate. And a lot of the national news hole is being wasted, I think, on the essentially local news story of the Duke lacrosse team and Michael Nifong. I mean, the Duke basketball team or the Duke football team--those have received national sports coverage for years, so they're arguably national news. But this whole story has, as is increasingly common in cable news, been a local news story blown up for the nation to pretend it cares about.

On the other hand, there is the blossoming scandal of Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank, pushing through promotions and raises for his squeeze while lecturing the poor countries of the world about corruption and good governance. The Wolfowitz uproar--the board of the bank says it was never consulted about the perks, and is now huffily investigating--led BBC's midday radio news today, but look for it in vain in most of the American mediascape. BTW, Wolfowitz--he of the "There is no history of ethnic strife in Iraq"--was appointed to his position by the American government.