The scandal at Rupert Murdoch's News Corp crossed the Atlantic Ocean on Tuesday, not because any new evidence appeared linking the company to illegal acts in America but rather because several cable news channels broadcast the British parliament hearing live to US audiences.

This was evidence that Americans – at least in the traditional news business, where the public agenda is largely formed even with the rise of social media – had started to pay close attention to the affair.

What's not remotely clear at this point, however, is whether the people and organisations who can actually do something to bring the America-based Murdoch empire to heel are paying much attention. I refer mainly to the agencies with subpoena and enforcement power in the federal government, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice.

It will, in fact, surprise me if the authorities working for the Obama administration take this up in a serious way. After all, Obama's typical approach is to insult his allies while he cozies up to his enemies.

Imagine if the roles in this scandal were reversed. That is, imagine that the perpetrators of the voicemail hacking, apparent bribery of police and who knows what else were part of a liberal news conglomerate while Republicans controlled the White House and at least one house of Congress.

You can bet that a George W Bush administration would respond with savage pleasure. It would use the situation like this to punish its political opponents. One would expect the same from any of the plausible Republican candidates for president in 2012. And Republicans in Congress would be frothing at the mouth to ensure that the company paid dearly for its transgressions.

Indeed, in this parallel universe, the executives of the media company might well have been hauled before courts, congressional committees and grand juries already. And Fox News would be leading the calls for termination of this imaginary company's broadcasting licenses, which surely would be in jeopardy.

The Obama administration doesn't seem terribly interested, despite news stories suggesting that an investigation has begun, and his party doesn't have anything like enough spine to force the issue. The Democrats stand for essentially nothing, as they've shown repeatedly in recent years. To be fair, moreover, Washington has other issues on its table – the debt ceiling, for example, which threatens to blow an even bigger hole in the struggling economy.

One partial caveat: if it turns out that News Corp employees hacked the voicemails of the families and/or victims of the 9/11 attacks, the company's American woes will surge. Even the Republicans who count Fox News as an essential ally in the war on liberalism would demand some kind of sanction.

Would it bite hard or be long-lasting? Probably not. Fox is one of the right wing's primary propaganda arms, after all, and it employs a variety of out-of-work GOP politicians (especially those who might someday run for president). Punishing that operation would have consequences.

Even so, it's hard to escape the sense that News Corp's future is spinning somewhat out of control. The UK parliament's minor stab at accountability was useful, but infinitely incomplete. Only when Murdoch father and son, as well as surrogate daughter Brooks and the rest of the current and former top executives, are interrogated by experts – after the documentary evidence has been thoroughly examined – will the company's future as an essentially unaccountable family operation be decided. Most likely, those experts in interrogation will be found in the UK, where the government has at long last discovered its own spine.

It's tempting to feel a pang of pity for the shareholders. But they jumped into the arms of a man whose genius as a strategist may well have been undone by his arrogance.

Would News Corp be better off if it shed the "journalism" and concentrated on its highest profit centre, namely entertainment? Probably. But Rupert Murdoch has made it clear that the power he enjoys as a news proprietor is essential to his very being.

He no longer pulls essential strings in British politics, at least for the moment. But he still has enormous, if malevolent, influence over America's political culture. He, and the people who benefit from it, won't cede it readily – and they have much sturdier backbones than their opponents.