comments_image Comments  How the Media Ignores Alcohol's
Contributions to Personal Disaster  Booze is implicated in many
more major news stories than the press ever acknowledges, from
party politics to bloody mayhem.  This article originally
appeared at the Fix.  ‘Tis the season to be jolly, to go
a-wassailing, to stay late at Christmas parties, to dress up
like Santa Claus and to drink too much eggnog. Yet when it comes
to public acknowledgement of the results of all this drinking,
our national carol seems to be “Silent Night.” Almost every day,
the media brings us another troubling or tragic story in which
drinking or drugging plays a role—not necessarily the primary
role, but one that typically goes unmentioned. When
drinking isreported, it is often in celebrity scandal stories
that make getting drunk seem like the privilege and the curse of
being a star.  In politics, one example is the apparent
intransigence of Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner
and his inability to get along with President Oba