CBS' EYE JUST GOT BLACKER

This Sunday, the more than 100 million Americans watching the Super
Bowl will see advertisements encouraging them to buy no less than
three different drugs designed to combat erectile dysfunction. They
will see ads paid for by tobacco litigation money - which is to say by
smokers - and brought to us by the officious busybodies at the
American Legacy Foundation. (The ALF is responsible for those
obnoxious ads that assume Americans are such idiots that we need to be
bombarded with reminders that cigarette smoking is bad for our
health). The Super Bowl audience will be implored to buy gas-guzzling
cars and brain-numbing beer, and more generally to consume mass
quantities of stuff. What they will not see is an award-winning ad
that criticizes the Bush administration. The advertisement, created by
Charlie Fisher of Denver, is, as political ads go, exceptionally
understated.

The 30-second spot features a montage of several small children, shown
working at the sorts of jobs they are likely to be doing decades from
now, while guitar music strums peacefully in the background. The
screen is then filled with this message: "Guess who's going to pay off
President Bush's $1 trillion deficit?" This ad was rejected by CBS,
which is broadcasting the Super Bowl, as "too controversial." (My
brother, who let me know about this controversy, speculates that the
decision is based on the Roman law doctrine that "there is to be no
criticism of the Emperor during the Circus.")

This egregious bit of censorship is made all the more obnoxious by the
fact that CBS will air an advertisement during the game from the White
House's own Office of National Drug Control Policy, which, in
appropriately Orwellian fashion, will encourage teenagers to rat out
their pot-smoking friends to Big Brother.

The White House's ad follows on the heels of its memorable 2002 Super
Bowl advertisement, which claimed that people who use drugs (not,
apparently, including erectile dysfunction drugs) are supporting
terrorism. That particularly idiotic moment in the war on drugs wasn't
too "controversial" to be unleashed on the public during America's
annual pigskin pageant.

Some readers might remember that, in the wake of the 2002 ad, a group
led by Arianna Huffington sponsored advertisements suggesting that
people who drive SUVs are supporting terrorism: a claim that actually
isn't quite as absurd as the claim made in the earlier White House ad.
Several television stations declined to run these ads, on the grounds
that they were - you guessed it - "too controversial."

Decisions of this sort are more than monuments to hypocrisy and double
standards. Because those who have the right to broadcast have, in
effect, a monopoly on the television airwaves, the television networks
are regulated closely by the federal government. By law, the networks
hold their broadcast rights in trust, and are thus obligated to do
business in a way that is mindful of the public interest.

CBS doesn't serve the public interest when it rejects an otherwise
appropriate advertisement because, in the opinion of the network's
managers, the ad's message is too controversial. This is especially
the case when the network broadcasts equally controversial
advertisements, during the same program for which the rejected ad was
intended.

Given that CBS is regulated so heavily, and that major legislation has
just been enacted that critics argue will unduly enhance the network's
market share, is it possible that "too controversial" really means
"harmful to CBS' corporate interests?" One need not be a cynic to
suspect that, as a great American journalist used to put it, "that's
the way it is."

Paul Campos is a professor of law at the University of Colorado.