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Posted on 07/13/2003 4:29:56 PM PDT by South40
For those who wondered how Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., could sponsor a “campaign finance reform” law that restricts political speech, the answer became clear during a hearing he chaired the other day: McCain has never read the First Amendment. How else to explain the senator’s contention that radio stations violate the First Amendment when they decline to play the music of performers who offend their listeners? According to McCain, this threat to freedom of speech is a ‘‘strong argument’’ for limiting “media concentration” — in this case, for compelling big radio chains to sell some of their stations.
As you may have guessed, the focus of this Senate Commerce Committee hearing was the Dixie Chicks, the country music performers from Texas who caught flak last spring for remarks about President Bush and the war in Iraq. At a concert in London, lead singer Natalie Maines told the audience, ‘‘Just so you know, we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.’’ She later apologized for being disrespectful but reiterated her doubts about the war.
The apology didn’t help. As Lewis Dickey, CEO of the 270-station Cumulus Broadcasting group, recalled during the hearing, ‘‘There was a groundswell of negative reaction by our listeners against the band. We had never seen anything like it before. Calls were coming in ... from our individual program directors across the country, saying there was a hue and cry from our listeners regarding those remarks that was unprecedented.’’
Cumulus responded by barring Dixie Chicks songs from its 50 or so country music stations for a month. ‘‘At the same time,’’ Dickey noted, “our Top 40 radio stations in the same markets ... continued to play the Dixie Chicks,” because ‘‘we didn’t have the hue and cry from our listeners.’’
Dickey concluded that continuing to play the Dixie Chicks on the chain’s country stations would alienate listeners and ultimately cost Cumulus money. I’m not sure the 30-day ban was a smart business move, but there’s no question the decision was the company’s to make.
No question, that is, except in the minds of John McCain and people who share his confusion. McCain called the Dixie Chicks moratorium ‘‘an incredible, incredible act,’’ explaining: ‘‘I was ... as offended as anyone by the statement of the Dixie Chicks. But to restrain their trade because they exercised their right of free speech to me is remarkable.’’ Not just incredible and remarkable, McCain told Dickey, but unconstitutional: ‘‘Because if someone else in another format offends you, and there’s a huge hue and cry, and you decide to censor those people, my friend, the erosion of the First Amendment in the United States of America is in progress.’’
If anything qualifies as incredible, it’s McCain’s understanding of the Constitution. The First Amendment says, ‘‘Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech.’’ It does not impose any obligations on radio stations.
McCain was not the only senator at the hearing who had trouble telling the difference between a private business decision and government censorship. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., likened Dixie Chicks boycotters to Nazi book burners and ‘‘communist dictators’’ who ‘‘strip out all the works of art that they don’t agree with.’’ In case that was not enough to scare you, both McCain and Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., summoned up the most nightmarish scenario they could imagine if, heaven forbid, radio stations started routinely responding to the demands of their listeners: What if a senator said something offensive, and a chain of radio stations decided to keep him off the air for a month?
Simon Renshaw, the Dixie Chicks’ manager, conceded that “the (radio) networks enjoy the same First Amendment rights as my clients.” Those rights include the freedom to choose the music they play. Yet Renshaw insisted it was inappropriate to consider politics in writing playlists because doing so would ‘‘undermine free speech.’’
Like McCain, Boxer and Dorgan, Renshaw seems to think the right to free speech means the right to say what you want not only without being punished by the government but without paying any cost at all. He’s wrong.
Just ask Michael Savage, whose MSNBC talk show was recently canceled after he made some nasty remarks to a gay radio caller, or Dr. Laura, who suffered a similar fate because of her statements about homosexuality. Both were exercising their freedom of speech, but so were the critics who wanted them off the air. Jacob Sullum is a senior editor with Reason magazine and a nationally syndicated columnist. His column publishes on Saturday.
Thank God this idiot lost to a bettr man in 2000.
The question is not whether McCain has read the first amendment; rather, the question should be, "Can McCain read?"
And an 'amen' to that.
Funny these people just cannot get it; the Dixie Chicks said precisely what they wanted to say; and they are still speaking last I heard. . .
McCain is scary; like maybe during one of his surgeries, someone planted a Leftist chip in his brain. . .
That is as reasonable explanation as any I can think of to explain this ex-military 'republican'. . .
About McCain, It is better to remain silent and people think you a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
The answer is that McCain values his opinion, more than the Constitution.
Bad enough they badmouthed the commander-in-chief on foreign soil on the eve of war, but even if I were willing to forgive that, they've since shown their true colors by dropping the weepy contrition act and twisting this incident into an unforgivably shameless marketing ploy. At a time when real patriots are risking their lives for this country, they've been posing as martyrs because other people dared to criticize their moronic comments, dedicating songs to Michael Moore in concert, popping up in Congress to attack radio stations for daring to exercise their own free speech rights, and of course, wrapping themselves in the flag and the Constitution (when they're not posing naked on the cover of Entertainment Weekly.) I used to think maybe they were just naive liberals who shot their mouths off and were sorry, but all they are is self-serving, opportunistic hypocrites. To hell with them.
If I remember right, McCain's ass was saved from recall by 9-11
You are correct. The people running the McCain recall effort decided to put it on hold out of decency and concern that just after 9/11 wasn't the best time to do it.
That’s to be expected, as their understanding of the Constitution is clearly limited and by far outweighed by their anti-American sentiments.
But to hear a Senior Senator, and Republican to boot! espousing the same was entirely unexpected. Then, again, we’re talking about John McCain, as big a sore loser as Al Gore ever was.
I actually attended one of his 2000 campaign rallies here in San Diego.
He's a loser.
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