<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (atlcomedy @ Mar 28 2009, 10:23 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div>
THe Clinton thing takes this down a whole nother path of the original question of to tell the truth or not & that is if your audience knows the truth, tell the truth. Don&#39;t insult us by lying or trying to skirt the issue on a technicality.

I don&#39;t really thing that many people really cared where Slick dipped his wick. I do think they didn&#39;t like him insulting our intelligence by going all lawyer on us and trying to define "sexual realtions" for us.[/b]
The other aspect is the seemingly common view in the US that the individual, their personal life, and their job are welded together. In many places in the world (UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, etc.) there is much more acceptance that an individual’s private life is private unless it directly impacts the job. That doesn’t mean that affairs and indiscretions do not get played, they do. But they tend to fall off the radar very quickly.

This is evident not only in the reporting of activities in the news but is profoundly evident in humour.

Recall the Australian Cabinet Minister who was caught dancing in a strip club, handcuffed to a pole with his pants down around his ankles. When he was confronted by both Australian media and in the house he was asked to explain what he learned from the experience. He said always wear clean underwear and never go drinking with Canadian and Icelandic fisherman. While it made for a few days entertainment, it didn’t lead to a scandal.

In Canada (I am Canadian) there are three national current events/news/satire TV programs; The Rick Mercer Report, This Hour has 22 Minutes, and The Royal Canadian Air Farce (which ended its 35 year run this past December). A key element of each week’s segment is some piece that hi-lights the private person vs. the public persona. Examples:
- spending an “overnight” with the Prime Minister and his family, the Prime Minister makes the TV host lunch,
- while interviewing the Leader of the Opposition discussing the similarities between a proposed coalition of the opposition parties to a threesome,
- having Elizabeth May (the leader of the Canadian Green Party) cut a tree down with a chainsaw
- satirizing the mannerisms of various political leaders with them participating in the scene
- and it’s not just politicians, Pierre Berton, a famous author of fiction and Canadian history, doing a piece on the proper way to roll a joint
- Geddy Lee on proper tobogganing technique

All of these point to the acceptance of famous people as just ordinary folks outside of their “job”.

There are many other examples, but the point is this is a brand of humour that while it exists in the US, it doesn’t include the public figure directly on current sensitive issues.