It's been said that we get the government we deserve. Perhaps that's true as well for the pathetic excuse that is our media. The anal-retentive single-focus ADD OMG-we-have-24-hrs-to-fill cable news channels are feeding their customers what they want. Any number of important stories have been ignored this week in favor of the purient adolescent giggling over Anthony Weiner. It was a perfect storm of a firebrand politician with an unfortunate name and some icky pictures.

One would think that nothing of import occurred this past week. One would think that these scandals have never occurred before. David Vitter? John Ensign? Larry Craig? Where they driven to resignation within a week of their respective stories breaking? David Vitter actually got promoted to Senator. Where's the balance?

Think about how these scandals played out. Larry Craig was arrested for soliciting gay sex in an airport bathroom stall. We know this because we can read the police report. We know John Ensign bribed his married lover's family, because we've read the reports, and we've seen the cancelled checks. We know David Vitter paid hookers while wearing a diaper. We know this because we've read the testimony.

Anthony Weiner? We didn't need to read about it because a picture is worth a thousand words - and that made all the difference.

In our smartphone, flatscreen, 3-D glasses-wearing world, we are driven by the visual. We may believe what we read, but it's the visceral visual impact of a photo that really makes it real for us. Imagine that Mr. Weiner's text messages were made public, that his emails were revealed, but there were no photos. Would the controversy have been as severe? I say no.

Imagine, now, there were photos of David Vitter wearing a diaper with a hooker, a photo of John Ensign naked in bed with his aide, a photo of Larry Craig with the back of a man's head in his lap... Would any of this change what they did? No - all it would change is the perception of what they did. That's exactly what it did for former Congressman Weiner. It changed a minor scandal about text messages into literal porn. What he did was far less aggregious than the transgressions of the Republican lawmakers previously named. The extremely personal photos, however - that fed the ravenous maw of vouyerism in a public jaded by technology.

The messages, but especially the photos - they were all tailor-made for a lazy media. Rather than have to read and describe and report, they only had to show the photo and make snickering jokes. This is what we get instead of in-depth investigations into important issues that matter. They know what makes us tune in, and feed it to us whether it's good for us or not. It's getting to the point where the only difference between "news" and the tabloids is the paper.

I am fairly disgusted at this point. I'm disgusted with a Democratic party more interested in appearances than in protecting one of their most driven members, disgusted with a media that seems to be able to only focus on one story at a time (the more salacious the better), and in a viewing public that eats it all up like it's Saturday night WWF. It's schadenfreud disguised as Important News.

This is how great empires die. The masses are distracted with bread and circuses while the powerful clean out the vaults and steal away in the night. I hope it was all worth it.