Chandra mystery theatre

Welcome to this morning's episode of "Where's Chandra?"

Like "All-Monica-All-the-Time," the last national soap opera brought to you by Media Frenzy Productions (viewer discretion is advised) "Where's Chandra?" contains graphic descriptions of the kinky sexual and political practices of the people who live and work in Washington, D.C., and is not intended for children, viewers of CBS' "Evening News" or devout Democrats.

Unfortunately, "Where's Chandra?" is not merely another stupid miniseries.

As the covers of Newsweek, Time, People, the Weekly Standard and the New Republic show this week, "Where's Chandra?" is a real-life mystery involving the missing 24-year-old intern Chandra Levy and congressman Gary Condit, her 53-year-old lover at the time of her disappearance.

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Levy vanished May 4, and by now, every America who's heard of Perry Mason can predict how this tragic who-dun-it is likely to end: Levy will turn up dead and Condit, whose creepy career as a serial philanderer and political hypocrite has been exposed, will have had too much to do with it.

Stay tuned – and keep hoping. Levy could still turn up on a Brazilian beach or have been abducted by aliens. Meanwhile, the New Republic’s politically centrist editors are already calling for Condit, a moderate Democrat whose friends include many conservative Republicans, to resign.

Condit has been charged with no crime and no criminal investigation has started. But he took 10 weeks to tell D.C.'s Keystone Kops important details of their relationship.

Therefore, he undermined the search for "a missing woman because he was too selfish or too cowardly to tell the truth," says the New Republic, before saying what Condit's fellow Democrats won’t: "For that alone, he deserves our contempt. And he should step down."

At the Weekly Standard, the "Where’s Chandra?" package includes "Where Were the Adults?" by Noemie Emery. She asks why Levy, like Monica Lewinsky before her, was surrounded by so many alleged adult relatives who couldn’t bring themselves to tell her it was wrong, not to mention stupid and degrading, to be "servicing" a married man twice her age.

In his Weekly Standard cover photo, Condit looks youthful, bright-eyed and nauseatingly wholesome. But in his full-page photo on Page 18 of Time, the preacher's son they call Mr. Blow Dry is not smiling and looks 25 years older.

Time's Condit-Levy story – "Sex, Lies and Polygraphs" – covers the basics and stashes the story inside. But at Newsweek Chandra's photo is on the cover and ace investigative reporter Michael Isikoff shows how both sides are using every cable network this side of the Weather Channel to make their case.

Condit's no-longer secret sex life is also exposed in Newsweek's 9-page package. And writer Jonathan Alter acknowledges the obvious – "adultery is eternal and biological." He also admits the Levy story is legitimate news, though he's embarrassed by the news media’s crack-like addiction to it.

Of course, as Chris Matthews railed the other night, without the "media frenzy" Condit would not be in any trouble and Levy would be just one of 3,492 American women between 22 and 29 who are officially missing. As People magazine’s well-done cover story on families who are searching for some of these women points out, most are in hiding voluntarily. Unfortunately, some are gone forever, media frenzy or not.