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Politics : Fair and Balanced-'Duties Of a Democracy' -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ksuave who wrote (1218)	9/30/2008 3:44:04 PM
From: longnshort	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1262

Free speech II One thing fueling conservative suspicion on the Missouri Truth Squad was that at more or less the same time last week, the Obama campaign was threatening stations in Pennsylvania and Ohio that ran an ad from the National Rifle Association that said Mr. Obama would be "the most anti-gun president in American history" and detailed his statements on a number of gun-related issues. The letter from general counsel Robert F. Bauer warns stations that "for the sake of both FCC licensing requirements and the public interest, your station should refuse to continue to air this advertisement." "You have a duty 'to protect the public from false, misleading or deceptive advertising.' Licensee Responsibility With Respect to the Broadcast of False, Misleading or Deceptive Advertising, 74 F.C.C.2d 623 (1961). Failure to prevent the airing of 'false and misleading advertising' may be 'probative of an underlying abdication of licensee responsibility' Cosmopolitan Broad. Corp v. FCC, 581 F.2d 917, 927 (D.C. Cir. 1978)," the letter from Mr. Bauer reads. In a post denouncing Mr. Bauer as "Fascist Jerk of the Day," lawyer Jeff Bishop, who blogs as XRLQ at Damnum Absque Injuria notes that the legal decisions are badly miscited. "The FCC piece in question is not about political advertisements, which enjoy the broadest protection under the First Amendment, but about commercial advertisements, which have only limited protection today - and had none at all in 1961. For a political campaign to argue that any station has a 'duty' to 'protect' its viewers from advertisements that portray their candidate in a negative light is nothing short of frivolous," the lawyer wrote. Also, in an exhaustively detailed post at the Volokh Conspiracy, David Kopel of the Independence Institute said FactCheck.org "flubs" its criticisms of the NRA ad, cited in the Obama letter. Mr. Kopel says FactCheck's claims are "overstated," consist mostly of "the mere recitation of vague platitudes by Obama claiming that he supports the Second Amendment," while that the ad details "various positions which Obama has taken over the years," almost all of them unrepudiated.

To: ksuave who wrote (1218)	9/30/2008 3:45:23 PM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 1262

Free speech III Another thing fueling conservative suspicion on the Missouri Truth Squad was that just a week earlier, the Obama campaign was organizing supporters to intimidate Chicago radio station WGN-AM into canceling the appearance of author David Freddoso on one of its talk shows. Conservative blogger Dale Price wrote that the Obama campaign "has decided it's going to shout down anybody who offers a criticism in a public forum." Mr. Price satirized the campaign with a picture of Romanian coal miners, linking to a 1990 article about President Ion Iliescu getting thousands of miners to attack anti-government demonstrators in Bucharest with clubs and truncheons. Guy Benson at National Review's Media Blog cited an Obama campaign e-mail that says "the author of the latest anti-Barack hit book is appearing on WGN Radio in the Chicagoland market tonight, and your help is urgently needed to make sure his baseless lies don't gain credibility. David Freddoso has made a career off dishonest, extreme hate mongering ... And WGN apparently thinks this card-carrying member of the right-wing smear machine needs a bigger platform for his lies and smears about Barack Obama - on the public airwaves." Matthew Vadum at the American Spectator noted that Team Obama already had "attempted to mau-mau Freddoso's fellow National Review writer, Stanley Kurtz," who was researching the Chicago Annenberg Challenge "because both Obama and his friend [Weathermen terrorist William] Ayers were involved in it. "The campaign tried to shut down the show. Obama supporters inundated the show with telephone calls and picketed outside the studio. They also called other talk shows and regurgitated the talking points the campaign fed them," Mr. Vadum wrote. Hot Air's Ed Morrissey asked aloud: "Where is the rest of the media on this? It's the second time in three weeks that the campaign itself has organized a brute squad to intimidate journalists into silence ... and the rest of the media seems content to allow it. • Contact Victor Morton

To: ksuave who wrote (1218)	9/30/2008 8:11:18 PM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 1262

F.O.F.—Friends of Fannie By Gretchen Morgenson, 10.06.97 FANNIE MAE always seeks friends in high places. The Clinton Administration is packed with her pals: Three Cabinet members recuse themselves on matters relating to Fannie Mae, either because they have worked there or they have done business with the company. Goldman, Sachs has raised so much capital for FannieMae that Treasury Secretary Rubin has a potential conflict of interest. Commerce Secretary William Daley left the board of Fannie Mae only this spring; Franklin Raines, new head of the Office of Management &Budget, was vice chairman of Fannie Mae between 1991 and 1996. Ellen Seidman, a former special assistant to Fannie Mae Chairman James Johnson, is Clinton's nominee to head the Office of Thrift Supervision. The Clinton Administration is not unique in this respect. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer James Johnson ran the Mondale for President campaign. Johnson says he has worked in five presidential campaigns since he was 18. Vice Chairman Jaime Gorelick was, until 1997, a deputy attorney general at the Department of Justice. Robert Zoellick, one of Fannie Mae's executive vice presidents, was Bush's White House deputy chief of staff; board member Ann McLaughlin was labor secretary under Reagan. John Buckley, of Fannie Mae's public relations staff, was communications director for Dole-Kemp 1996. William Maloni and Gerald McMurray, Fannie's in-house lobbyists, were Hill staffers; Herbert Moses, a Fannie Mae manager, is better known as the domestic partner of Representative Barney Frank, a member of the House Banking Committee. Fannie Mae Vice President Mary Cannon was an assistant secretary for public affairs at HUD under Jack Kemp. Outside lobbyists/consultants retained by Fannie Mae include Michael Boland, a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott; Vin Weber, a House member from 1980 to 1992 and cochair of the 1996 Dole-Kemp campaign; Lawrence F. O'Brien III, son of the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee; and Kenneth Duberstein, chief of staff under Reagan. For years this sort of political clout has protected Fannie Mae. But times change. With so many of its friends susceptible to conflict-of-interest charges, they will find it increasingly difficult to protect the company's interests. Meanwhile, its outsize profits and privileged position make it an increasingly tempting target. -G.M. forbes.com

To: ksuave who wrote (1218)	10/2/2008 12:43:21 PM
From: longnshort	1 Recommendation Respond to of 1262

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