The circle of underpants

Bob Cesca: "The for-profit news media has a corporate/financial mandate to deliver whatever the people want. So when Anthony Weiner, John Ensign and others unfurl their penises in public, they supercharge the Underpants-Media-Consumer Complex. The news media reports it because thousands of us watch it -- tsk-tsking and tee-heeing. Why? Because the news media has been reporting it, so we watch it, and on and on and on. The circle of underpants. We blame the news media for being prurient and the news media blames us for forcing them to air it. ... Maybe these stories are better suited as kickers next to the water-skiing squirrel and the nacho chip shaped like President Taft. Definitely not the lede. But there it is -- every time. Because we watch it in record numbers. This is precisely why oracles like Paddy Chayefsky [Network screenwriter] warned us about mixing news and entertainment programming."