reality used to be a friend of his

vermont independent/socialist congressman bernie sanders needs a better grasp of the facts. (link found through howard stern's website)

i'll chalk his error to "2004 inaugural" instead of 2005 as a typo--that can happen to anyone. but unfortunately, sanders veers way past typos to mischaracterizations (at best) and half-truths:

• as his first example of "a full-scale effort to limit and control the programming" by "President Bush and his right-wing colleagues in Congress", sanders points to the passage of the broadcast decency enforcement act which raised indecency fines to $500,000. the mistake sanders makes is that 161 democrats voted for the bill too--hardly just bush and right-wing colleagues.
• sanders continues by extrapolating congressional actions from the utterances of two of its members. i don't recall sanders speaking out against charlie rangel's efforts to reinstitute the military draft (which ironically rangel himself voted against--talk about doa).

but sanders all but admits (like rangel voting against his own bill) the disingenuousness of his own argument when he writes "If Stevens and Barton have their way..." since there is no widespread support to broaden indecency enforcement outside broadcast media. both the former fcc chairman michael powell and current/incoming(?) kevin martin ("Even Commissioner Martin has acknowledged that the FCC probably can't police satellite radio...") say the fcc has no standing in this area.

¶ - nitish @ 5:49 PM