My Current Political Conversation

Yesterday I got this email from probably my most liberal friend. It's basically accusing CBS of violating Free Speech by refusing to air the winning ad from a competition sponsored by moveon.org, an organization that was started during the Clinton impeachment. Here's the letter that was sent (and please watch the ad, this post will make more sense.) http://www.moveon.org/news/2278.html

And here was my reply all:

From : Craig Nash
Sent : Thursday, January 29, 2004 5:50 PM
Subject : RE: It's About Free Speech

It's not about free speech. The airwaves may belong to the public, but CBS doesn't. The campaign finance laws state that every politcal CANDIDATE must have equal time on television stations. Last I checked moveon.org isn't running for a political office, and neither is the office of the White House.

Although I believe that CBS should seriously consider airing these ads in order to show to the public the double standard held by most political factions when it comes to hateful and demonizing rhetoric, it is well within their rights to refuse.

Respectively Disagreeing,
Craig.

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And here's a response I got back:

From : Joel
Sent : Thursday, January 29, 2004 6:52 PM

Mr. Nash,
You're right, it's not about free speech. But it is not about campaign finance laws either. It is about honoring the contract between the writer/director of the commercial and the commercial contest administrator (CBS).
If it were about campaign finance laws, if CBS wanted equally shared time between all candidates, they wouldn't have named the contest "Bush in 30 seconds." By doing so, there is obviously going to be 30 seconds of publicity on Bush. The writer/director of the commercial entered the contest under the assumption that if his expression of "Bush in 30 seconds" (the name and only regulation of the contest) won, it would be run at the Super Bowl. One can imagine how that would feel for an up and coming director. When the viewers voted for this particular commercial via i-net, CBS started sweating its content. Through a breach of winner's contract, which again stipulated air time of the winning commercial at the Super Bowl, between the contestant Charlie Fisher and CBS, CBS acted legally irresponsible at the least when they formally stated they would not air the commercial. When CBS decided to accept a large part of their budget from the Bush admin. and then not air the commercial, the question of moral responsibility came into question by moveon.org (i.e. was the Bush Admin. financially strongarming CBS?).
While the latter is debatable from a moral stance, your allegations that the commercial or the political "faction" it represented was using "hateful" or "demonizing" rhetoric I strongly disagree with. It is a fact that there is a 1 trillion dollar deficit and it is a fact that it will be payed off by taxation of the next few generations. The commercial was illustrious of this. I do not, nor do the majority of my generation, consider this "demonizing" or "hateful" rhetoric, but rather an actuality of our future.
Respectfully Disagreeing again,
Joel Sager
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To which I replied:

From : Craig Nash
Sent : Friday, January 30, 2004 4:42 AM

Before I get accused of being politically biased let me just say this-- I am.

First of all, from everything I have read, CBS was not the commercial contest
administrator-- moveon.org was. I have seen nothing in print or on the news
regarding a presigned agreement between CBS and the writer/director of the
film-- not even on the moveon.org website. So if it is true that CBS is flaking
out of a contractual agreement then moveon.org doesn't think it's important
enough to include in their story on CBS's "censorship."

I respect your opinion that you don't believe the winning ad was hateful or
demonizing, but I think it's rather naive'. The one indisputable fact in the ad
is that the budget deficit is 1 trillion dollars. I believe that to be true.
It's the subtext, however, that is slanderous. Of course our children will be
forced to deal with the complicated situations we leave them with-- that's a
timeless truth, but they're not dealing with it now. The obvious subliminal
connection that the writer of the ad seeks to draw is that of negative feelings
associated with child labor. The text is about the deficit. The subtext is that
Bush doesn't care about our children. That's hateful and that's demonizing, no
matter what generation you come from. It's almost as bad as the Willie Horton
advertisements the Republican National Commitee put out in '88 against Dukakis.

Craig.

P.S. Knowing politics bores the hell out of most people, this'll be my last
"reply all" on this subject.... unless provoked :)
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Thought some of y'all might enjoy that.