Works The Pole

SCARBOROUGH: Have you seen Fred Thompson’s wife?

CRAWFORD: Oh, yeah.

SCARBOROUGH: You think she thinks she works the pole?

CRAWFORD: That’s what a Hollywood career will do for you, I guess.

SCARBOROUGH: What do you mean?

CRAWFORD: You get wives like that.

The reason that you end up with character-assassinating statements like this is because TV journalists are far more interested in being on TV than they are in politics. At the root they don't really care very much about politics, and so they treat it like high school instead of dealing with the real cause and effect it has on people's lives. This is even true of Joe Scarborough, who himself was a Congressman.

The great problem of America is that nobody who pays attention to politics and disseminates it to the population, by and large, is all that interested in politics. They think it's just a game. There are plenty of substantive reasons to criticize Fred Thompson, but saying his wife "works the pole" is beyond where you need to go. This happens on the left as well, with talk of haircuts and Hillary and Bill and Obama's middle name. I'd love to see us get back to policy, but the truth is that, while the media claims that the people aren't that interested in it, the truth is that THEY aren't.