The Federal Communications Commission is assigned the duty of enforcing broadcast decency provisions of the Communications Act of 1934. But Barack Obama's FCC seems to think the indecency-discouraging mission of the FCC is as outdated as Glenn Miller, even as the airwaves sound more like Ozzy Osbourne. FCC chairman Julius Genachowski is an aggressive regulator, thumbing his nose at a recent court decision that underlined he has no statutory authority for his power lust to rein in Internet service providers. Feeling no need to wait for a Democratic Congress to grant him that authority, Genachowski is planning to reclassify broadband... continue reading
Everyone knows that the quickest way to become a popular Republican in the media's eyes is to denounce the Republicans as too extreme and conservative. The latest example is Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, who became an instant media sensation when he abandoned his dreadfully losing GOP campaign for the U.S. Senate to run as an independent. Chris Matthews pushed the storyline as a "Stalinesque purge" of moderates. Obama strategist David Axelrod crowed about how great the Democrats looked as a result: "We have a big tent. They have a lean-to now." This, from the party that hasn't tolerated a pro-life... continue reading
When we think of comic-book superheroes, most of us who grew up in the last century think of mild-mannered reporters, or perhaps urbane millionaires with a secret identity, who fight crime heroically. They collar the bad guys and deliver them to justice. Even the supervillains they'd fight always seemed to escape so they could resurface in a later issue, and the struggle of Good vs. Evil continues. That is not what a customer will find if he makes the mistake of taking in the new movie crudely titled "Kick-Ass." The concept seems innocent enough - teenage comic-book devotee with absolutely... continue reading
Arizona officially joined the South this month. In other words, it became for our Northeastern media elitists a state dominated by backward, slack-jawed racists. The Associated Press marked the passage of a tough new anti-immigration law with the leftist version of a Welcome Wagon: "The furor over Arizona's new law cracking down on illegal immigrants grew Monday as opponents used refried beans to smear swastikas on the state Capitol." Disagreeing with the left - and more importantly, handing them a political defeat - brings a lot of ugliness these days from the forces of "tolerance." Character assassination is required. A... continue reading
When Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens announced his retirement, President Obama promised he would appoint someone like Stevens, who "knows that in a democracy, powerful interests must not be allowed to drown out the voices of ordinary citizens." In the world of politics, that phrase is self-explanatory. In the cultural arena, it's more murky. When it comes to First Amendment cases on broadcast indecency, who is the "powerful interest" and who was the "ordinary citizen"? The roles are now reversed. The president can't use that analogy, because the powerful interests are now in Hollywood, facing the millions of regular... continue reading
They suggest that "news" shows don't go into reruns. But it certainly seemed that way when Bill Clinton marked the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing by repeating the same reprehensible smear from 1995. "Anti-government talk" emanating from conservatives naturally, inevitably led to 168 lives snuffed out in the wreckage of the Murrah Federal Building. On the night of April 16, ABC substitute anchor Elizabeth Vargas red-carpeted Clinton's latest attack with the title "Watch Your Words" on the screen. Vargas identified talk radio and Tea Partiers as the culprits: "There is a lot of attention tonight on comments made... continue reading
Six years after "The Passion of the Christ," anyone expecting a renaissance in faith-based movies has largely been disappointed. This is not to say such movies aren't produced. Every now and then, there's a movie made for this audience, but the audience won't hear about it from the movie critics because these elites aren't interested. Last weekend, a new film premiered called "Letters to God." A title can't be more explicit about its plot. It's a movie about a 9-year-old soccer-crazy boy stricken with cancer, and the inspiring letters he writes each day to God. It's about prayer - certainly... continue reading
In the mind's eye of the conservative movement, the Tea Party phenomenon right now is maybe the crucial factor in slowing socialism in Washington, on everything from the federal health care takeover to the hidden taxes of cap-and-trade legislation. It's also a fascinating visual. When was the last time you saw such a spontaneous eruption of conservative grass-roots anger, coast to coast? On both counts the Tea Party movement should be cause for massive television coverage. Except for one thing. It's a conservative uprising, so it gets different treatment. It's ignored as long as possible, and when it's no longer... continue reading
Variety is a Hollywood trade publication, but it can be hard to figure out where the entertainment industry ends and the industry's journalistic apple-polishers begin. Exhibit A is a commentary by Brian Lowry trying to compare the news media's current hate objects - the tea party tax protesters - with the entertainment media's hate objects, the activists opposing Hollywood-distributed vulgarity. Lowry dismisses both movements as hopelessly lost in the past, insisting the tea parties "sound strangely familiar, mirroring increasingly futile attempts to arrest changes and recapture simpler times in television - an ongoing Tea Party on the tube. In spirit... continue reading
Our secular liberal media elites are never more poisonously insincere than when they recommend that conservatives should move closer to liberals, for their own good. Witnessing the relentless media attacks on the Catholic Church, no member of the flock should assume that the agitators at Newsweek or the New York Times know best how to steer the faithful - or even believe they want to help the faithful. Much like Ted Turner, who called Catholics "losers," his media colleagues see Catholics - and particularly Pope Benedict XVI - as loathsome political obstacles. One can conclude from all the coverage of... continue reading