Monday, January 31

Bush the voice of reason?

Finally, he says something rational. From Media Life:

Bush: It's up to parents, not us, to fight indecency

Now that the election is over and President Bush is secure for the next four years, it appears he and his administration are stepping back from the indecency debate. In an interview with C-Span’s Brian Lamb that aired last night, the president said parents are the first line of responsibility for protecting children against indecent TV programming. “They put a button on the TV for a reason,” he said. “Turn it off.” Bush called himself a free speech advocate and said “that government can, at times, not censor, but call to account programming that gets over the line. The problem, of course, is the definition ‘over the line.’” That wasn’t quite the tune the administration had been whistling since last year’s Super Bowl halftime flashing incident, after which the Federal Communications Commission began an indecency crackdown and Congress pushed through bills upping indecency fines. Bush said that departing FCC chair Michael Powell did a good job of balancing free speech and the need to protect children, and that he will ask where the indecency line should be when interviewing for his replacement.

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