Congressman Eric Massa’s abrupt retirement and his ensuing talk show blitz consumed the media with tawdry details of his career’s implosion. The first and only term now former US Representative from New York went on Glenn Beck’s Fox News program with the promise of naming names and exposing the corruption of those who Beck suspects of nefarious deeds (i.e. social justice). He said that all Americans needed to hear Massa. “This is the moment that will decide the course of this nation possibly.” Beck told his audience as a teaser to the epic hour-long interview with the Democratic Congressman with an axe to grind. He continued, “This is the guy we’ve been looking for!”

The Massa interview on Beck’s show was a mess-a. He admitted to groping a male staffer, happily. He talked about his aggressive birthday-induced tickling and something about how that’s just a thing guys do in the Navy. The sentence “It looks like an orgy in Caligula,” was uttered. Then just to make it weird, he meandered around general Democratic talking points about getting involved and reforming campaign finance. It was yet another sensible claim Beck promised his audience that has yet to come true. Nazi communism, anyone?

But then Massa went on CNN’s Larry King Live revealing even more of his escapades. Stories have surfaced about the Catholic former Republican former Naval Officer and the term “snorkeling” was forced into the public discourse. It all seems pretty salacious. Very tabloid-esque. Very Hollywood drunken diva-like. Something you’d see right before a publicist announces their client has been checked into secluded non-specific rehab for “exhaustion. “

Has Hollywood corrupted the way we see our politicians?

Worshiping actors as idols is a relatively new practice. During the Dark Ages, before anyone figured out it was rats spreading the plague it was blamed on traveling actors, which were held in similar esteem. People who made their living acting onstage during the Victorian era were akin to how we view strippers today. Yes, people went to go see them…but ya know. Acting was a subculture of a lowly form for nearly all of its history. It wasn’t until Hollywood made stars out of celluloid and media made them alluring did we care about actors in a broad sense. Now we’re mindful about their opinions on everything from energy policy to which lip gloss is the glossiest. When they say stupid things it’s a scandal. When they do stupid things it’s a story. When they are stupid things it’s an obsession.

When actors were seen as vermin, the object of our affections and repugnance were people with actual power: politicians. They were the Lindsay Lohans of the early part of this country. Think of the Burr-Hamilton Duel between then former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton and sitting Vice President Aaron Burr as the E! True Hollywood Story of the 19^th century. There were no sports figures at the time. No recording artists. No mothers of multiples. The only icons were politicians, tycoons and criminals. Or Wyatt Earp who was really a bit of all three. And of those it was politicians were the most subjected to outrage for immoral behavior. They were the tabloid stars of the 19^th century. Between the published rumors of President Thomas Jefferson fathering children with his slave Sally Hemmings to bachelor President Grover Cleveland paying child support, if you could read in the first-half part of this country’s history, politicians were going wild.

Then by the turn of the 20^th century, starlets came along and usurped political figures from the lone wrath of public spectacle. Now because of reality shows and 24-hour news they have to share the limelight with a zillion other kids of notables. But Congressman Massa, impugning the conduct of the military and the House of Representatives in one non-denial denial brush stroke is a throwback to a better time. The good old days. The pre-cotton gin days.

Politicians in garish sex scandals like Eric Massa, former Senator and presidential candidate John Edwards, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and Nevada Senator John Ensign are just taking back their country from Hollywood.

Read more: Mark Sanford, Eric Massa, Lindsay Lohan, John Ensign, Caligula, John Edwards, Larry King, Victorians, Fox News, Navy, Wyatt Earp, Glenn Beck, Grover Cleveland, Actors, Thomas Jefferson, Entertainment News

As I was strolling through the European Paintings collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art the other day, Paulus Bor’s “The Disillusioned Medea” (“The Enchantress”) caught my eye. The painting is beautiful, but in the particular room in which it hangs, it does not differ much in subject or in size from its companions. What stands out is not Medea’s lonely gaze but the nipple slyly protruding from her off-the-shoulder gown. In essence, it is Bor’s rendition of the first nip slip.

When VH1 runs “I Love the 00’s,” the nip slip will require its own segment. From 2000 to 2009, shocking children and parents alike, the nip slip became a cultural phenomenon. Lindsay and Paris were the early faces of this movement, but since the 2004 Super Bowl, Janet Jackson’s star-studded, rounded flesh, made the nip slip a must for any attention-seeking female celebrity. Jackson gave new meaning to the term “waldrobe malfunction,” and CBS is still fighting the FCC over the fine. The ongoing case may set television legal precedence unseen since F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, which famously centered on George Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words” routine.

The nip slip is perhaps most fascinating because its evolution is an indicator of how jaded we have become to the celebrity body. While the nip slip was hitting its stride in the early to mid 00’s, we were eagerly following the homerun prowess of Sammy Sosa, Mark McGuire, and Barry Bonds. They were our American idols. They single-handedly led the resurgence of our National Pastime and they did so by awing us with their superhuman strength. The grace of Jordan, the finesse of Gretzky, and the hands of Rice defined the 80’s and 90’s, but now we were witnessing the emergence of power and we couldn’t get enough of it.

When the bubble burst and what we thought was superhuman strength was actually inhuman strength created by Human Growth Hormones, we became outraged, skeptical, and finally, defeated. And this brings us to the present. Now, we are accustomed to being always-questioning and ever-dubious of an athlete’s physical achievement, and rightfully so. Even during the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, we fed on stories heralding the athlete’s celebrity rather than on the physical preparedness that brought them fame.

In the past month, Greg Oden and George Hill have stood nude in front of a mirror and captured the sight on their cell phones, and Chuck Liddell and Heidi Northcott thought it would be a good idea to exercise naked together while a camera was rolling. Although Liddell says that he “thought it would be funny” to exercise naked, he also claims that he did not know a camera was running but that “it’s not a big deal.” Most recently, video has surfaced of Bengals receiver Chad Ochocinco running nude through the park one morning. When asked by Sports Illustrated if he always jogs naked, Ochocinco responded, “Yeah, why wouldn’t I? What’s wrong with that? I take a shower naked.”

The truth is, he has no reason not to anymore. Leaving the museum and passing by the Greek and Roman Art Collection, I was reminded of how much importance used to be placed on the human form and how the athlete’s body was revered through art. No longer, though, do we see musculature and exclaim “wow!” Instead, we question “how?” Since Sosa, McGuire, Bonds, and A-Rod, since Landis and possibly Armstrong, since Marion Jones, we are sick of hearing about, reading about, and seeing the athlete’s body. We just aren’t amazed anymore. So the next time you confusedly see in a 6’1”, 180 lbs. wide receiver running nude through the park, Ochocinco’s question remains:

Why wouldn’t he?

Read more: Paris Hilton, CBS Sports, Heidi Northcott Naked, Lindsay Lohan, Barry Bonds, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Janet Jackson, Vancouver Olympics, Chuck Liddell Nude, Chad Ochocinco, Sammy Sosa, Floyd Landis, Mark McGwire, Lance Armstrong, George Hill, Greg Oden, Marion Jones, Sports News