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Sunday, March 07, 2004
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MORE FUN WITH THE FCC
Last night I wrote incoherently about the desire of the FCC to push a wrong-headed campaign ploy to advance "decency in broadcasting. This morning, things are getting more interesting. The Republican National Committee is now threatening private broadcaster's licenses should they continue to run advertising from MoveOn.org.
The letter from the RNC's chief counsel reads, in part, as follows;
"As a broadcaster licensed by the Federal Communications Commission, you have a responsibility to the viewing public, and to your licensing agency, to refrain from complicity in any illegal activity"
The letter continues;
"Now that you have been apprised of the law, to prevent further violations of federal law, we urge you to remove these advertisements from your station's broadcast rotation."
I'm far from a fan of MoveOn.org. In all likelihood, they will very soon be violating campaign finance law by doing message co-ordination with the Kerry campaign and the DNC, as Kerry will very soon be out of money. That is clearly illegal, although it didn't stop Bill Clinton in '96, as Dick Morris revealed in his book Behind the Oval Office.
But the legality of MoveOn's current fundraising is for the Federal Elections Commission to decide, not the RNC. What the RNC is doing smells very, very bad. Why? Well, I'll tell you. The RNC itself can't do anything to a private broadcaster, but the Bush administration -whom the RNC represents- can. The FCC is answerable to the Executive Branch. Using the law enforcement powers of the government to silence political opponents has been tried before. It didn't work out very well. It was called Watergate. You may have heard about it.
If Bush has any brains at all, he'll fire Chairman Gillespie and Mrs. Vogel post-haste for even implying that the FCC should get involved in an election campaign.
And that is my editorial comment. It's been a very slow news day.
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