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We planned to spend the past seven days analyzing the budget of the Multnomah County Educational Service District, reviewing the latest data on reproductive rates of Columbia River steelhead and crunching numbers from the PGE/Enron deregulation plan that is currently before the Oregon Public Utilities Commission. Instead, we got caught up in The Moment. Like thousands of other journalists, we found ourselves tied to the tube, attached to the AM dial and squishing through the Lewis & Clark campus desperately seeking what the school's dean of students, Michael Ford, called a "Monica Moment." And who could blame us? The biggest presidential scandal of a generation has its origins partly rooted right here in Stumptown. So, after a week on the Lewis & Clark Trail, what do we have? We didn't get the name of the married man Monica Lewinsky supposedly slept with while in Portland. We didn't find any letters from Monica to former classmates detailing a torrid White House affair. We didn't discover any condoms stamped with the presidential seal. Instead, we watched other media in action, spent an evening with Lewis & Clark's embattled public-relations director, tracked down some of the funnier jokes on the subject and contemplated the eternal question, "What is sex, anyway?" We do realize that beyond the hype and double entendres, there is a serious story here. After all, the drama being played out in Washington this week provides a good civics primer. Whether they're teaching kids, saving salmon, regulating utilities or running the most powerful government on earth, public officials are effective only if they're trusted by those they govern. That fact, despite what the media frenzy might lead you to believe, will have more influence on Bill Clinton's future than what he did--or didn't do--with a former intern who spent a couple of unremarkable years in Portland. |
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Melt Into Our Monica Moments: |
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