We've got spin-off expressions too, such as "to be in bed with," meaning closely associated where such an association is illegal/immoral - as when a politician is receiving kickbacks or bribes from a corporation in return for favors. There was a comic strip - was it Bloom County? - that had a character named Senator Bedfellow. As to origins, the following answer was found at http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/45/messages/158.html Posted by ESC on January 01, 2006 at 19:37:21: : Like so much else, it's originally from Shakespeare: "Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows" (from The Tempest). In the 19th century it was adapted by Lord Lytton: "Poverty has strange bedfellows". I don't know who first attached it to "politics", but I have also heard "necessity makes strange bedfellows". POLITICS MAKES STRANGE BEDFELLOWS - "enemies forced by circumstances to work together; members of an unlikely alliance, often attacked as an 'unholy alliance.' 'True it is,' wrote Charles Dudley Warner in 1850, 'that politics makes strange bedfellows.' Warner, editor of the 'Hartford (Conn.) Courant,' was co-author with Mark Twain of 'The Gilded Age,'; he might have taken the expression from Edward George Bulwer-Lytton's novel 'The Caxtons,' published in 1849, which contained the phrase 'Poverty has strange bedfellows.' More likely the source for both was Act II, scene 2 of Shakespeare's 'The Tempest'." From "Safire's New Political Dictionary" by William Safire (Random House, New York, 1993). Page 762-763.

the exploits of the front page fodder for the past decade... and recent days

Monica Lewinsky possibly

Politics has long been considered a plural noun; its use with a singular verb is comparatively recent. A well-established variant of adversity makes strange bedfellows. Party politics, like poverty, bring men ‘acquainted with strange bedfellows’. [1839 P. Hone Diary 9 July (1927) I. 404] The Doolittle raspberries have sprawled all over the strawberry-beds: so true is it that politics makes strange bed-fellows. [1870 C. D. Warner My Summer in Garden (1871) 187] Ashley Wilkes and I are mainly responsible. Platitudinously but truly, politics make strange bedfellows. [1936 M. Mitchell Gone with Wind lviii.] Even enemies have something in common. Statecraft produces strange bedfellows. [1980 P. Van greenaway Dissident vii.] Politics makes strange bedfellows, if Mr. Hyde will forgive the unforgivable but irresistible metaphor. [1995 Washington Times 31 Mar. A4] http://www.answers.com/politics%20makes%20strange%20bedfellows Political interests can bring together people who otherwise have little in common. This saying is adapted from a line in the play The Tempest, by William Shakespeare: “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.” It is spoken by a man who has been shipwrecked and finds himself seeking shelter beside a sleeping monster. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Politics+makes+strange+bedfellows&r=66 “Politics makes strange bedfellows” Charles Dudley Warner (American Editor and Author, 1829-1900)