Ted Stevens' hard-on
My employer chose a good day to schedule me off. I've been engrossed in the circus of hypocrisy that is the Senate Commerce Committee hearing on indecency in broadcasting and cable. A CBS vice president is testifying, along with the president of the Screen Actors Guild, and a rep from a national organization of psychologists. Strangely, the only person asked to testify by committee chairman, Sen. Ted Stevens, as a public citizen is not an advocate for First Amendment rights or consumer freedom, but Brent Bozell, leader of a "family-focused" political lobbying group so far out of the cultural mainstream that its list of recommended TV programs has virtually no overlap with the impartial Nielson Company's weekly record of America's most popular shows, and whose agenda seems far more focused on advancing a political point of view than it does protecting children against indecency.Shame on Stevens. He's desperately groping to mobilize radical right-wing voters against artistic freedom and an industry that already polices itself with a visible and effective ratings system. In one especially futile moment today, Stevens attempted to grill CBS's rep over TV Guide's negligence in not listing the age-appropriate ratings. Why not ask Rupert Murdoch, I wonder? He owns the magazine. It's all laughable. Americans like sex. It's time to deal with that fact. This afternoon's proceedings promise to get even better when an attorney for the adult entertainment addresses the committee's questions about on-line pornography.
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Speaking of Brent Bozell, his website chastises Matt Lauer for using the term "ultra-conservative" on the air to describe Supreme Court nominee Sam Alito. Why exactly would such a description damage Bozell's political cause? I thought "liberal" was Washington's dirty label.
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It makes sense to me to simply ban all gifts to our Congressional representatives, but Senator Trent Lott is worried that new lobbying restrictions would force him to eat at McDonalds.
Here's a summary of a lobbying study done by the Center for Public Integrity last year. Take a minute. In one of the all-time great examples of Washington greed and deceit, 2005 also saw the installation of former Rep. Billy Tauzin as the chief lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry just months after he and his colleagues allowed industry reps to literally write the new prescription drug benefit bill, and that Tauzin then steered through Congress.
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Kudos to Google for refusing to comply with the Bush Administration's subpoena for the records of the search engine's users, and promising to fight "vigorously" on behalf of its users' privacy rights. The Justice Department contends that it needs the data in its effort to revive an internet "child protection" law that has already been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. I presume, naturally, that the President's team is not interested in documenting the private on-line searches of red-blooded American citizens, only those of smut-loving Islamo-terrorists living in our ranks.
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If the Justice Department wants to subpoena someone, they should make it the cast and crew of "The Sopranos," who all continue to be extremely tight-lipped about the juicy plotlines of the upcoming season. TV columnist Dave Walker, though, did his best this week to pry.
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David Letterman, last night: "Earlier tonight on TV, 'Skating with Celebrities.' Did you see this? It was a very exciting show. At the end of the episode, Tonya Harding was shot by Robert Blake."
posted by CM @ 12:44 PM
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