He pushed for the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the marketing practices of the entertainment industry, saying it targets young people for ultraviolent products. He wants to assert control over Big Media the way the government tamed Big Tobacco. Civil liberties be damned. Lieberman is one of the new breed of Democrats who think the Constitution is maleable when it comes to such things as violent programming. He needs to be reminded freedom of speech is not a cafeteria plan where government gets to pick out the speech it doesn't like for special control.
Expressive freedom is pretty much an all or nothing proposition.
Gore, who chose moralist Lieberman as a kind of Clinton-antidote, says all policy decisions will be his alone. But one has to wonder whether Gore, surrounded by the flapping lips and wagging fingers of his running mate and wife, will as president resist congressional and regulatory efforts to control America's entertainment choices or whether he'll become head nanny himself. All rights reserved.