Viewpoint: Scandal? What Scandal?

"Where's the outrage?" the plaintive cry of Bob Dole, Republican candidate for the U.S. presidency in 1996, was a lonely gem in a drab election. Outrage, Dole knew, is the infallible motor of change in democracy. So with his campaign floundering, he groped for something — anything — to rouse public ire against his opponent, President Bill Clinton. Dole failed because an American electorate with a connoisseur's nose for scandal couldn't be snookered into sharing his faux indignation.

A country's capacity for outrage tells you a lot. America has developed a culture of 24-hour fury, with every television...

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