I'm having trouble figuring out the mass appeal of the Kobe Bryant case. I'm not talking generally about why some cases (particularly those involving celebrities) become massive media events; I understand that well enough. What suprises me is the extent to which this case in particular has grabbed the attention of the entire nation.

When I was doing sports radio, I used to gauge the relative celebrity of an athlete by applying what I called the "Mom Test." My mom is not a sports fan. I can recall her watching maybe two sporting events in her life, and even then under duress. Thus, for an athlete to break into her consciousness, he has to have reached an unusual level of celebrity; he (or she) has to have achieved noteriety and name recognition among non-sports fans. When my mom knows who an athlete is, he has pervaded the culture enough to pass the "Mom Test."

I understood the interest in the O.J. Simpson case because he shattered the Mom Meter. There wasn't a person in America who didn't know who Simpson was even before he hacked his wife and her friend to death. Other athletes, past and present, who would pass the Mom Test: Joe DiMaggio, Willie Mays, Pete Rose, Wilt Chamberlain, Muhammed Ali, Mike Tyson, and Michael Jordan, to name a few. Even Shaquille O'Neal, Bryant's teammate with the Lakers, appears to pass the Mom Test, probably because of his unlamented movie career and ubiquitous commercial presence.

Which brings me to my dilemma: Kobe Bryant does not pass the Mom Test. Sure, she knows who he is now. But before this case, she didn't know him from a hill of Beans. I also asked a notoriously sports-ignorant co-worker of mine if he had ever heard of Kobe Bryant. "No, not before this," he said. Kobe Bryant is a basketball superstar, but as best I can tell, his pre-rape fame was mainly confined to sports fans. Any case involving a famous athlete would be big national news, no question. But this case is reaching O.J. proportions, without Bryant having nearly the pre-alleged-crime celebrity that Simpson did. Last night, they were actually breaking in on radio stations to carry that little, useless pre-trial hearing live.

So what is propelling this case to the heights it's reaching? In the Simpson case, though the coverage was outrageously overblown, I believe the media was merely feeding a pre-existing national appetite for coverage. It seems like in this case, the media is trying to recreate the "glory" of that case during the dog days of summer.

The whole thing reminds me of a funny scene in the movie "Groundhog Day." Bill Murray, after reliving the same day hundreds of times, finally spends a nearly perfect day with the object of his affection, Andie McDowell. The day culminates with a completely spontaneous snowball fight between them and some kids, and at the end of it all, McDowell is falling in love with Murray, having seen his spontaneous, loveable side. Then Murray wakes up the next day only to find that he's starting the same day over yet again. Wanting to get back to the point where he had nearly won her, Murray tries to recapture the magic by recreating the the events of the previous day, this time going through the same motions stiffly and awkwardly, culminating with a bizarre, completely non-spontaneous snowball fight with the same kids.

I get that same feeling from this case. The media is trying to recreate the day, mechanically going through the motions of throwing the snowballs. They're trying to create an appetite rather than feeding one. In the movie, Andie McDowell was repulsed, In real life, the American people seem to love the counterfeit nearly as much as the original.