Watch Your Language, Mr. President

[Guest guest]

WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE, MR. PRESIDENT

July 18, 2006

 

There was a lot of hot air blowing yesterday about President Bush being

caught saying " s#*t " by a microphone he didn't know was on at the G-8

Summit this weekend. Unfortunately, not enough was said about the

hypocrisy behind that word.

 

Not long ago, Bush signed legislation that increases the indecency fines

on broadcast outlets to $325,000, and added fines for individual

broadcasters -- like me -- who might allow that word, or similar ones,

onto the American airwaves. It's all part of the tight-right-wing

blowback that followed Nipplegate.

 

I'm not referring to programming that is purposely outrageous. I'm

talking about the accidental moment that allows a verboten word to slip

through, from a caller, a spectator, or a government official.

 

Ironically, if that microphone that caught Bush's remark had been live

on the air, that would have constituted a violation under the new FCC

rules. Personally, I'd love to see them start a case against any

broadcaster who did present the President's comments verbatim.

 

The FCC has recently asked TV networks to hand over tapes of any sports

event in which a fan, player, or coach may have uttered something they'd

consider unfit for human ears. The presumption is that the commission

may go back and issue fines for those incidents. If that's the case,

you can say goodbye to live telecasts of sports -- everything would have

to be put on delay.

 

The same would then have to be true for any news event, whether it's

coverage of the war, a man-on-the-street live shot, or a Presidential

press conference. You'd just never know when the President might utter

the S word. Or when the Vice President might say the F word on the

floor of Congress. Or when either of them might call a NY Times writer

an A-hole.

 

The hypocrisy here is that the exposure of those words on the airwaves

is a rather rare occurrence, certainly more rare than their use in every

day life by adult men and women, both in and out of power. Yet in those

rare circumstances, the same government run by those men and women can

use its power to fine broadcasters hundreds of thousands of dollars.

That's enough to bankrupt a radio personality, for a single mistake.

 

At what point in our development as a society will we accept the fact

that those words aren't as horrible as the right-wing extremist special

interest groups believe they are? In fact, they're such a common part

of our lexicon that even world leaders use them in casual conversation.

 

I know, I know, it's all about protecting the kids, even though it

isn't. If it were, the FCC never would have fined PBS stations for the

real-life language in a documentary last year about blues music -- a

show that had virtually no one under the age of 12 watching it.

 

This isn't about protecting kids, or even adults, from " indecency. "

It's about protecting political turf.

 

To paraphrase President Bush, it's time to stop this s#*t.

***

Copyright 2006, Paul Harris

http://www.harrisonline.com/plain/plain.htm