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LX Second Super Bowl Memories

The week of Super Bowl XXXII, the one John Elway finally won, was the week the Monica Lewinsky story broke. Yeah, she's a trivia question now, but at the time, people got excited. The next day, every newspaper in the U.S. ran a front page headline that essentially read "OMG!OMG!OMG!" until it ran up against the edge of the page.

Except one.

The Green Bay "Press-Gazette" had more important matters on its mind than the President's sex life. The copies of that esteemed journal delivered to the Super Bowl working media room that afternoon showed that its editors knew what their readers wanted and needed to know.

The story across the top of the fold of page one was the tragic tale of how several of the charter jets carrying Packers fans to the game in San Diego had run out of beer somewhere over the Rocky Mountains. Clinton and Lewinsky were page three. Green Bay should have an NFL franchise until the sun goes supernova.

A further Lewinsky Super anecdote. The Sunday morning of the game, one East Coast sportswriter went down to the lobby early in the morning, early enough to watch television production crews do some light housekeeping.Out went the potted palms. Down came the windowshades. In one instance, up went a fake bookcase.

The crews were doing set redecoration for the Sunday morning DC talk shows. Every Senator and Congressman in the country of course wanted face time to blatt about Lewinsky. But the ones who were at the Super Bowl on some lobbyist's dime didn't want their constituents to know that's where they were.

Since of course the networks identified the location of their live remote as San Diego, I doubt the disguise fooled many voters. At least I hope not.

posted by Michael Gee @ 12:13 PM