I was listening to a radio talk show when a woman called to complain about a discussion of the Marc Rich pardon. Ah yes, so sorry to have disturbed you with revelations of how the then-president sold his office like a streetwalker bartering her favors, an act that typified the most corrupt administration in history. This flight from unpleasant reality reached its zenith during the impeachment. The public preferred not to dwell on the implications of allowing the president to lie under oath, thus deliberately undermining the legal system he had sworn to uphold. But the moral sewer of the Clinton years is one of many disquieting matters we prefer to ignore.
Heads discreetly turn away from the impact of sex and violence in the entertainment media.
Earlier this month, a study by the Henry J. Kaiser Foundation found sexual content is now present in fully 75 percent of prime-time television programs. Just when it seems cinematic and televised violence has crested, the tide surges higher. Only Jack Valenti, mechanical wind-up spokesman for the motion picture industry, thinks there's no connection. We've spent the past 28 years perfecting the art of non-thinking about abortion. Now we are applying the techniques learned to euthanasia, bioethics and cloning.