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To: tm22721
It is time for a change to the Constitution. But it won't happen since liberal journalists will use their 'bully pulpit' to thwart it.
But my thesis is that the Constitution is good as written. It is only the utter lack of judicial application of it to the FCC which is a problem. And, as you note, "objective" (their codeword for liberal) journalists are hugely influential even on SCotUS. Only one justice has settled it in his mind not to care how he is portrayed in--does NOT read or view--the newspapers or TV News.

Congress has passed McCain-Feingold, and that will be reviewed by SCotUS. IMHO nobody will argue the case correctly; the defenders of the law will argue that it's fine for Congress to decide who can talk on the radio and who can't, the opponents will argue that the status-quo-ante was uniquely constitutional and Congress can't control the FCC.

Congress created the FCC and therefore could uncreate it; it certainly CAN control it. But that, of course, is a constitutional problem of its own; it reveals the FCC for what it is: a smokescreen for Congressional control of political speech in the venue of wireless.

There exists a category of constitutional law know as "strict scrutiny"; basically it means that if you are skating close to discriminating against blacks SCotUS will not give you the benefit of any doubt. The FCC deserves such treatment simply for existing, as a creature of Congress, for the constitutionally suspect purpose of regulating wireless communication in general and wireless political communication in particular. The history of broadcast journalism--simply amplifying the biases of print journalism--can be shown, IMHO was shown in Slander, to be so endemic, pervasive, and systemic that the FCC not only cannot withstand strict scrutiny, it cannot withstand any scrutiny at all.


150 posted on 09/20/2002 7:11:48 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion
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To: patriciaruth
The left wing organization I would like [Bush] to tame the most, however, is TV news broadcasting (ABC, CNN, NBC, CBS, PBS).
I created this thread to define how that could in principle be done.

151 posted on 09/20/2002 8:55:26 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion
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