I think between my post on the issue and this definitive post from Jay Caruso, MarK Kleiman should be able to recognize that his creative interpretation of Kennedy’s Vietnam comment is pretty laughable.
John Cole started Balloon Juice early in 2002. Those who have followed along know that this has been quite the journey.
Costly And Stupid
This administration’s obsession with regulating decency is not only indicative of an annoying and creeping paternalism, but it is also damaging businesses:
he U.S. radio industry’s long-awaited recovery remains on track for 2004, but the specter of rising fines for on-air indecency could threaten the already fragile rebound.
If programs get boring and listeners turn off, advertisers might pull the plug on an industry hoping for 6 percent ad sales growth this year compared with a meager 1 percent in 2003, industry analysts said.
“Obviously, programing is on the air because it’s popular and profitable, and so far we’ve seen (operators) stand by talent and programing,” said Gordon Hodge, financial analyst with Thomas Weisel Partners.
“If regulation arose that stifled popular programing, then there would be economic repercussions. Long term, it could be problematic,” Hodge said.
Federal lawmakers have taken up broadcast decency with a vengeance in the wake of public outrage over Janet Jackson’s breast-baring Super Bowl performance, pushing legislation to raise the maximum fine for indecency to $500,000 per incident.
Back off.
Not Sure What His Point Is
I am not sure why Jesse finds this idea so bad:
Wal*Mart is getting ready to sell a DVD player that strips out the offensive content of movies for you.
Clearplay scans movies for dodgy content, and then programs that data into its system.
Subscribers can then watch standard copies of the 500-or-so films on its list, with the assurance that they will automatically skip over mute anything that children or the squeamish may not like.
Now, if you want to take precautions on live television, fine. But nobody forces you to put anything into your DVD player. If you want to watch a movie, but without the sex, swearing or violence, here’s a novel idea: there are thousands upon thousands of movies on VHS and DVD. Watch something else.
I can’t decide if this is just lazy or stupid, but part of me really wants to see the Clearplay version of Wild Things. I’ve heard it’s thirty minutes of the finest Matt Dillon standing, sitting, walking, and blurting out sentence fragments that Hollywood has to offer.
This is what is known as a market solution, and I am all in favor of it. This is personal responsibility- they are buying a product which allows them to view what they want, without material they find offensive, and guess what- it does not impede or infringe on the rights of anyonke.
Jesse has it ass-backwards. He should be encouraging this sort of idea.
Political Hack, Part 2
Shameless man prostitute for the DNC.
This really is quite revealing- appearances really are everything to the left. Clinton does nothing for 8 years, but ‘appears’ committed to the fight against terrorism. Bush refuses to play the press games, and therefore he is unconcerned about anything.
Political Hack
Thomas Kean, Chairman of the 9/11 Commission, had this to say about Clinton’s private meeting:
“A lot of what we talked to him about was actually the inner workings of presidency as well as many of the classified briefings we’ve been able to read,” [commission chairman Tom] Kean said in an appearance on Thursday evening on “Newshour” with Jim Lehrer. “We asked him some pretty detailed questions on those. And he was just totally frank – totally frank, totally honest, and forthcoming.”
Kevin Drum, while trying to pretend that this was actual sworn testimony from the former President (it was not), had this to say:
Isn’t that a refreshing change of pace? And he did it all without Al Gore there to help him along.
I would agree- Clinton being candid, honest, and forthcoming IS a refreshing change of pace. But really, despite Kevin’s veiled allegation that Rice was somehow dishonest, this is not a change of pace at all:
The administration has requested a second private session with Rice to clear up “a number of mischaracterizations” of her statements and positions about the attacks. She was interviewed by the panel behind closed doors on Feb. 7.
Rice was “very, very forthcoming in her first meeting with us,” said former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, a Republican named by Bush to lead the commission.
Yawn. Kevin is rapidly approaching Josh Marshall territory.
9/11 Commission
The shameless mugging, rude intteruptions, and over-all appalling behavior of Richard Ben-Veniste during the hearings (“Just answer my question,”) he siad- “If you will shut the fuck up for 5 seconds to let me,” should have been her response.) should put to rest any idea to what level Democrats will stoop for cheap partisan gain.
Whenever the Democrats claim something is ‘nonpartisan,’ they are only doing so to make it easier to slip the knife in between your shoulder blades.
And, for the record, I think Rice was brilliant.
Please, Folks
C’mon, people. In your feeble attempts to defend the indefensible, here is a quick suggestion. Recite what you have written in front of a mirror, and when you bust out in laughter at your own audacity halfway through, use that as a hint. The rest of us are going to laugh at you, too.
For example, Jeff Goldstein rightly takes Max Sawicky to task for his ludicrous defense of Chris Dodd’s remarks. Here is Max’s (spirited, albeit worthless) defense:
The effort to cook up an analogy between Chris Dodd/Robert Byrd and Trent Lott/Strom Thurmond needs a few sentences.
Robert Byrd is a great senator. His hands shake, but he is still sharp. Strom Thurmond was a great segregationist. In his final months as a senator, he was more out-of-it than in. Among other achievements, Byrd was a prime mover in blocking balanced budget amendments that would have screwed up the nation’s finances even more than the Bush Administration has. Thurmond evolved from a segregationist to a garden variety political hack. Byrd’s association with the KKK ended over fifty years ago. Trent Lott’s remark, not for the first time, reflected nostalgia for Thurmond’s glittering racist past. Comparison over. Can we please move on to the next canard?
Is Max speaking about this Robert Byrd?
At 9:51 on the morning of June 10, 1964, Senator Robert C. Byrd completed an address that he had begun fourteen hours and thirteen minutes earlier. The subject was the pending Civil Rights Act of 1964, a measure that occupied the Senate for fifty-seven working days, including six Saturdays. A day earlier, Democratic Whip Hubert Humphrey, the bill’s manager, concluded he had the sixty-seven votes required at that time to end the debate.
The Civil Rights Act provided protection of voting rights; banned discrimination in public facilities-including private businesses offering public services-such as lunch counters, hotels, and theaters; and established equal employment opportunity as the law of the land.
As Senator Byrd took his seat, House members, former senators, and others-150 of them-vied for limited standing space at the back of the chamber. With all gallery seats taken, hundreds waited outside in hopelessly extended lines.
Georgia Democrat Richard Russell offered the final arguments in opposition. Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, who had enlisted the Republican votes that made cloture a realistic option, spoke for the proponents with his customary eloquence. Noting that the day marked the one-hundredth anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s nomination to a second term, the Illinois Republican proclaimed, in the words of Victor Hugo, “Stronger than all the armies is an idea whose time has come.” He continued, “The time has come for equality of opportunity in sharing in government, in education, and in employment. It will not be stayed or denied. It is here!”
Never in history had the Senate been able to muster enough votes to cut off a filibuster on a civil rights bill. And only once in the thirty-seven years since 1927 had it agreed to cloture for any measure.
“It will not be stayed or denied.” Despite Byrds’s best efforts. Or this Robert Byrd:
More American fascism is exemplified in a letter written in December, 1944 from Robert Byrd, US Senator from West Virginia, to Mississippi’s notoriously racist senator, Theodore Bilbo. “I am loyal to my country,” wrote Byrd, then age 27, “and know but reverence for her flag. But I shall never submit to fight beneath that banner with a Negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt, never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels.” Unlike the black soldiers with whom he would never submit to fight, Byrd didn’t serve in the military in World War II.
Youthful indisgression, I guess. Ancient history. But then again, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks:
Senator Byrd was interviewed by Fox News Sunday host Tony Snow in a segment that aired on March 4. While expanding on his comment that race relations are now “much, much better than they’ve been in my lifetime,” Byrd made reference to whites who are still opposed to equal civil rights by saying, “There are white niggers. I’ve seen a lot of white niggers in my time; I’m going to use that word.” He later issued a statement apologizing for his remark.
While NAACP President Kweisi Mfume denounced Byrd’s comments as “repulsive,” the comments have not generated the same degree of criticism previously reserved for conservatives.
“I couldn’t believe what I was reading,” said Project 21 member S. Kevin Washington. “Senator Byrd’s comments were first brought to my attention via voice mail from a personal friend. I had not heard it on a national news broadcast; not NPR; not outcries of disgust by well-known black faces around America. The same people who castigated Republicans – President Bush, in particular – as racist now give Byrd a pass for his using the word ‘nigger’ just because he’s a Democrat like them. What a bunch of nonsense.”
Please- as a lifelong West Virginian, please quit making excuses for Robert Byrd and tell me how he really isn’t racist, really never was, and how he has a good voting record. Not only does it make you look silly, but my ribs are sore from laughing at you.