Today's Opinion Journal

If there remains any doubt that journalists' fascination with the Abu Ghraib story is primarily prurient in nature, consider how often it's showing up in entertainment stories:

From a New York Times article on Broadway shows: " 'Little Shop of Horrors,' for example, risks reminding people of the torture scandal at the Abu Ghraib prison." Not as much as the New York Times does, though.

From the Denver Post's review of the movie "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban": "The Dementors get their due--they are spectral Azkaban guards surrounding Hogwarts in search of Black. How little Rowling could have known a few years ago what Middle Eastern events would make her look prescient: Like certain other prison guards, the Dementors are more intent on capture and punishment than sorting right from wrong."

And from the Boston Globe review of the same film: "It's hard to watch the relentless Dementors curtailing liberties both at Hogwarts and in the surrounding country and not think about the current occupation of Iraq."

Perhaps in an attempt at political evenhandedness, the Associated Press includes this gratuitous reference in a dispatch about a Bill Clinton speech: "Clinton made no mention in his speech of Monica Lewinsky, the White House intern at the center of the sex scandal that dominated much of his second term."

My thanks to James Taranto and Opinion Journal for this info.