February 03, 2004
Dean Calls FCC Probe of Breast Incident 'Silly'
Somehow I am not at all surpised that Dr. Dean would take this position on the Jackson/Timberlake Super Bowl Incident:
Howard Dean, a physician and a Democratic presidential candidate, on Monday dismissed as “silly” a government inquiry into whether indecency rules were broken during the broadcast of the Super Bowl halftime show when pop diva Janet Jackson’s bodice was ripped to expose her right breast.
“I find that to be a bit of a flap about nothing,” the former Vermont governor said. “I’m probably affected in some ways by the fact that I’m a doctor, so it’s not exactly an unusual phenomenon for me.”
As a Presidential hopeful, it would behoove Dr. Dean to look beyond his own self-serving interests and embrace what matters to the country.
Could he right while a noisy faction of 140 million viewers are sounding off in outrage? Let’s say that only 10% of the viewers took offense to the R-rated display during the “family-friendly” television hours, the voice of the offended equates to 14 million people.
Also note that Janet apologizes
“The decision to have a costume reveal at the end of my halftime show performance was made after final rehearsals,” Jackson said in a statement.
“MTV was completely unaware of it. It was not my intention that it go as far as it did. I apologize to anyone offended — including the audience, MTV, CBS and the NFL.”
and slightly contradicts Justin Timberlake’s near immediate apology:
“I am sorry if anyone was offended by the wardrobe malfunction during the halftime performance at the Super Bowl,” he said. “It was not intentional and is regrettable.”
Ms. Jackson seems to validate the conspiracy theorists’ notion that the stunt was secretly planned. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell told CNN that he was “not convinced the incident was an accident”
Even the White House has issued a statement:
“Our view is that it’s important for families to be able to expect a high standard when it comes to programming,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
FCC Chairman Powell ordered the investigation on the Monday following the game and adamantly seeks to penalize the involved parties.
Powell said he was watching the game Sunday evening with his two children and found the incident “outrageous.”
“I knew immediately it would cause great outrage among the American people, which it did,” he said, citing “thousands” of complaints received by Monday morning. “We have a very angry public on our hands.”
Powell said MTV and the CBS network’s more than 200 affiliates and company-owned stations could be fined $27,500 apiece.
“I think it’s all of their problem,” he said. “The law allows you to reach many of the different parties.” He said he would like to see the enforcement penalties strengthened to 10 times their current amount.
Maybe Dean’s right and we need to view the body a just pure anatomy, forget about all this “silly” decency/morality stuff, and go somewhere and yell “Yeeeeaaaahhh!”
…Whatever…
(After this statement are there any Dean supporters left in the room?)
Posted by akvalley at February 3, 2004 08:47 AM | TrackBack