The contrasting public reactions to these scandals demonstrate national differences. Nobody cares about Glenn Mulcaire; this scandal has always been intended to bring down Murdoch. In the Pellicano affair, the feds let the private dick take the rap for the moguls.

Moreover, Mulcaire hacked voicemails to publish facts, while Pellicano taped phone calls to intimidate and silence. Pellicano’s modus operandi is in tune with the times here. Our mainstream press routinely colludes with publicists practicing “access journalism.” In return for an interview, journalists agree not to ask impertinent questions or they’ll never work in this town again. A century ago, reporters tended to be cynical ne’er-do-wells. Today, journalists typically come from the same kind of nice families and nice colleges as the VIPs they gently cover.

American society has grown increasingly credulous. Our last three presidents have come to office remarkably unknown. In mid-February 2008, after 33 states had voted in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama’s campaign managers still didn’t even have a contingency plan for how to spin away Obama’s long relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

George W. Bush’s limitations had been quietly noticed over the years by numerous men of affairs who had worked with him due to his father’s eminence. Yet young George’s fecklessness wasn’t effectively communicated to the public.

I spent much of early 1992 in Arkansas, where locals would tell me that Governor Bill Clinton was a notorious horndog. Clinton was running, in that “Year of the Woman,” as a devout feminist. He feigned righteous shock at Anita Hill’s sexual-harassment allegations against Clarence Thomas. In 1992, I wrote an article predicting sexual-harassment charges against Clinton someday. (Paula Jones’s 1994 sexual-harassment lawsuit led to the president perjuring himself over his affair with Monica Lewinsky). Nobody would publish it.

The prestige press briefly showed interest in Gennifer Flowers’s account of her long affair with Clinton. But the fact that she sold her story to the National Enquirer tabloid for money (instead of giving it to them for free) biased them against her. When the Clinton campaign claimed her answering-machine tapes of the candidate had been “doctored,” the respectable media collectively decided to move on.

Oh, and who was the Clintons’ audio expert? Reports say it was Anthony Pellicano.