Court Ruling Slaps Down Bush, FCC on Censorship!

The bad news is that we're going to actually have to hear what's on the "minds" of people like Cher and Nicole Richie. The good news is that an Appeals Court has seriously undercut the Federal Communications Commission's ability to censor language on the airwaves!

From the Washington Post:

A federal appeals court tossed out an indecency ruling against Rupert Murdoch's Fox television network yesterday and broadly questioned whether the Federal Communications Commission has the right to police the airwaves for offensive language.

In a 2 to 1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York ruled that the FCC went too far in issuing a 2006 decision against Fox Broadcasting for separate incidents in 2002 and 2003 after singer Cher and celebrity Nicole Richie each uttered an expletive on live television.

The ruling is a rebuke to the FCC and a victory for television networks, which in recent years have pushed back against the FCC's crackdown on indecency. In 2004, the agency reversed years of policy and effectively branded even "fleeting," or one-time, use of an expletive off-limits on broadcast television and radio, angering Hollywood, which warned of a chilling effect on programming.

The Los Angeles Times adds:

The court did not make broader findings about the constitutionality of the indecency guidelines that the networks had requested, and sent the matter back to the FCC for reconsideration. But the judges said they were "skeptical that the commission can provide a reasoned explanation for its 'fleeting expletive' regime that would pass Constitutional muster." The decision could be headed for an appeal to the Supreme Court.

And the New York Times:

Beginning with the F.C.C.’s indecency finding in a case against NBC for a vulgarity uttered by the U2 singer Bono during the Golden Globes awards ceremony in 2003, President Bush’s Republican and Democratic appointees to the commission have imposed a tougher policy by punishing any station that broadcast a fleeting expletive. That includes vulgar language blurted out on live shows like the Golden Globes or scripted shows like “NYPD Blue,” which was cited in the case.

Reversing decades of a more lenient policy, the commission had found that the mere utterance of certain words implied that sexual or excretory acts were carried out and therefore violated the indecency rules.

But the judges said vulgar words are just as often used out of frustration or excitement, and not to convey any broader obscene meaning. “In recent times even the top leaders of our government have used variants of these expletives in a manner that no reasonable person would believe referenced sexual or excretory organs or activities.”

That last bit is a clear swipe at our Hypocrite-in-Chief.

Remember this?



And this?

Then Bush spotted New York Times reporter Adam Clymer, who has been with the paper since 1977, serving as national political correspondent during the 1980 presidential race, as polling editor from 1983 to 1990 and as political editor during the successful presidential campaign of Bush's father in 1988.

"There's Adam Clymer -- major league asshole -- from the New York Times," Bush said.

"Yeah, big time," returned Cheney.

And this?

A brief argument between Vice President Cheney and a senior Democratic senator led Cheney to utter a big-time obscenity on the Senate floor this week.

On Tuesday, Cheney, serving in his role as president of the Senate, appeared in the chamber for a photo session. A chance meeting with Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, became an argument about Cheney's ties to Halliburton Co., an international energy services corporation, and President Bush's judicial nominees. The exchange ended when Cheney offered some crass advice.

"Fuck yourself," said the man who is a heartbeat from the presidency.

Hypocrisy is not a moral value. Sometimes, you end up shooting yourself in the face.