A few weeks back I turned on Headline News. A lot passes for impartial journalism these days including, it seems, the Headline News daytime host beating the drum about a "controversy" that doesn't exist. In this case, the Portland, Maine school board decided to allow birth control to be distributed by school nurses to sexually active 11-13 years olds. The announcer wanted to know what the viewers thought of the "controversy" which seemed to me to be a leading question. What constitutes a controversy after all? CNN coverage? The news had just broken that day and CNN was the main news source broadcasting it nationally (with its not so subtle implication that this was a scandal). Within hours CNN had completed the self-fulfilling prophesy: The Portland Maine birth control decision became a bona fide controversy. News outlets across the country joined in on the shock and coverage.

Portland's Mayor didn't take the bait however. He knew that contraception is the only effective way to reduce teen pregnancy. And after all, he's been through the nearly same exact exercise years earlier, just version 1.0. As the Portland Press Herald reported,

"Mayor Nicholas Mavodones Jr., who heads the City Council, said he has no interest in intervening in the School Committee's action.

Mavodones said school officials faced controversy when they developed a policy to offer condoms at the high school health centers. Back then, much of the opposition came in the form of letters and telephone calls from people from ''out of town,'' which meant elsewhere in Maine. Now, thanks to the Internet and the proliferation of national news media, ''out of town'' has no boundaries.

''I think we've got to be sensible about this,'' Mavodones said. ''We can't let talk radio and TV commentators influence what we do here in Portland. We have to answer to the people of Portland. We have to do what's right for Portland.''

Lucky for Portland, cool-headed Mavodones is the go-to guy. Many other a Mayor would have folded under the intense fabricated pressure. Today, thankfully, Mavodones and Portland were delivered some vindication by an Associated Press-Ipsos poll which discovered that sixty-seven percent of Americans support giving contraceptives to sexually active students in school. Most don't believe that doing so encourages teens to have sex earlier. Now, finally, the dog is wagging the tail and not the other way round.