• Chicago Tribune, on The Blunder Bowl • The (Baltimore) Sun, on efforts to make peace in Sudan’s Darfur region • St. Louis (Mo.) Post-Dispatch, on judicial nominees and filibusters Chicago Tribune, on The Blunder Bowl Finally! The ABC television
• Chicago Tribune, on The Blunder Bowl
• The (Baltimore) Sun, on efforts to make peace in Sudan’s Darfur region
• St. Louis (Mo.) Post-Dispatch, on judicial nominees and filibusters
Chicago Tribune, on The Blunder Bowl
Finally! The ABC television network, not to be outdone by rival CBS in shimmying over the fuzzy line of decorum and daring the Federal Communications Commission to slap it with a big fine, has pulled off its own Janet Jackson-like caper. In a segment that aired on “Monday Night Football” before the Dallas-Philadelphia game, Eagles wide receiver Terrell Owens and actress Nicollette Sheridan of the ABC hit “Desperate Housewives” shared a seductive moment.
The saucy blond actress, clad only in a towel, propositions the uniformed Owens, suggesting, “I’ve got a game we can play.” The towel slides off, and though no major skin is exposed on camera, the mandarins of the NFL—and, of course, the FCC—are predictably outraged. Again.
Let’s see. Didn’t NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue thunder about the league taking more control over telecasts after the Jackson bared-breast incident in the last Super Bowl? As if sex appeal and the NFL had never consorted? Please. Sex has been part of the NFL at least since the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders first pranced onto the field in their world-famous skimpy outfits decades ago. The NFL sells sex and violence and the occasional touchdown.
Only now, it seems, the sex is selling better. In the aftermath of this latest brouhaha, one academic called the “Monday Night Football” telecast “middle-aged” and “old” and suggested that the tie-in was a desperate stab at hipness. Ouch.
The towel malfunction is also a good way to get a scolding from FCC Chairman Michael Powell, who invoked the squeaky-clean image of the late Walt Disney in questioning the judgment of those who decided to air the scene. That’s probably the opening salvo in another FCC indecency crusade.
ABC is falling all over itself to apologize to everyone in sight. Given that the fever for blockbuster new FCC indecency fines continues to run high in Congress, one might have expected a bit more circumspection from ABC execs. Or at least an instinct for self-preservation, not self-immolation.
We wearily rise to suggest, once again, that such incidents do not warrant the scorched-earth tactics that the FCC has perfected in defending the nation’s sensitive ears and eyes from a fleeting glimpse of bare skin. Nor should they be an excuse to embolden Congress to dramatically increase fines. That’s just a shortcut to more censorship on television.
Did ABC and the NFL blunder by not knowing their audience? Seems they may have known their audience too well.
The (Baltimore) Sun, on efforts to make peace in Sudan’s Darfur region
The U.N. Security Council’s journey to Nairobi last week culminated with a signed commitment between the government of Sudan and rebel leaders in the south to resolve the country’s 21-year civil war by year’s end. But the two sides made the same pledge last year.
On a more pressing issue, the council’s meeting — its symbolic locale aside — offered no indication that the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region would end soon.
Traveling to Africa may have been an extraordinary gesture to telegraph the United Nations’ desire to stop the violence in Darfur. But the only response that truly matters is the action taken by the Sudanese government.
It has the power to rein in the Arab militias that have waged a campaign of murder, rape and forced relocation on African Muslims in the region since last year. But the punishing violence persists.
While in Nairobi, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan described the situation in the Darfur region as “a burning concern.” But no matter what he may say, the Security Council envoys won’t seek sanctions against the Sudanese government — though they keep threatening to do so. They prefer to place their hope in a package of financial incentives that would help Sudan rebuild the country and, perhaps, move directly toward a resolution of the violence in Darfur. Simple human decency should be the motivator, not money. But the Sudanese government is not similarly moved.
The grim prospect is that the situation in Darfur will continue as a humanitarian crisis indefinitely. The reality is that the people of Darfur will remain refugees until the government and the rebels in the south enter a power-sharing agreement and a new Sudan emerges. The conflict between the government and the Christian and animist south must end —more than 2 million people have died as a consequence of Africa’s longest-running civil war.
If the two sides in fact sign a peace agreement, the hope is that the situation in Darfur will improve. But not necessarily, and certainly not with any immediate results. With the U.N. Security Council averse to pressing for a resolution now, the people of Darfur can do little more than endure the hardships ahead.
St. Louis (Mo.) Post-Dispatch, on judicial nominees and filibusters
One of the most important decisions that President George W. Bush and the new Congress face is who and how to put judges on the federal bench, including the U.S. Supreme Court. …
For the past four years, Democrats have used the filibuster, the nuclear weapon of Senate opposition, to block some of Mr. Bush’s extreme judicial nominees. Now Republicans are talking about their own “nuclear” response: a vote to bar the use of the filibuster in judicial nominations.
Both sides should step back from the brink. The Democrats have overused the filibuster, but Republicans invite gridlock if they eliminate this powerful procedural tool. …
Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., … stresses that the Democrats have held up only 10 appeals court judges while confirming 203 of Mr. Bush’s nominees. But even those 10 filibusters are too many, blocking some well-qualified nominees.
Mr. Bush evaded one filibuster by naming one of his most extreme candidates, former Alabama Attorney General William Pryor Jr., to an appeals court seat as a recess appointee. Mr. Pryor recently cast the deciding vote against reviewing a court decision that denied gay parents the right to adopt children.
That demonstrates the real-life consequences of these appointments. Abortion rights also are at stake.
… If everyone were true to their word, we might avoid debilitating filibusters. If Mr. Bush appoints highly competent judges who won’t read their personal views into the Constitution, and if the Senate avoids litmus tests, we might yet avoid mutually assured destruction.6
