[I wrote this Lieberman piece the week we learned he was going to be the Dems' VP nominee but never got around to sending it out. Here it is, for your (potential) amusement. --Declan] ******** http://www.cluebot.com/article.pl?sid=00/10/11/143236&mode=nested Note to Dems: Don't Let Joe Lieberman Log On from the back-away-from-that-mouse-senator dept. By Declan McCullagh (declan@well.com) An open letter to Democrats: Your vice presidential candidate, Senator Joseph Lieberman, is without question a determined fellow. Who else would pen 1700-word essays carefully analyzing how many DWPM -- that's Dirty Words Per Minute -- appear on prime-time TV? Who else would painstakingly construct an oh-so-Washington response: The FCC should step in and threaten those TV networks with loss of their licenses if they don't cough up, Al Capone-style, protection programming? In the first hour of primetime, Lieberman writes in an essay published the week he accepted the veep slot, "sexual references have now reached an average of 3.69 per hour." Now, let's put aside the question of why an esteemed member of the world's greatest deliberative body feels the urge to take a counter to phrases like "Want to come up to my place for a drink?" It's true that Lieberman is quoting a study and perhaps didn't perform the mind-splitting task of weighing whether "Your place or mine?" falls into the safe-for-Junior or the raise-the-alarum category, though given his apparent predilection for prurience, one has to wonder. But calm down, Nadine Strossen: There's nothing particularly Orwellian about this precise, prudish algebra. That's because such fractional calculations, combined with the high-pitched harmonics of smug moral superiority, bespeak not so much Big Brother as an invigorated Kenneth Starr after a particularly rousing Bible study group. Does it really matter whether there are 3.692 sex mentions per hour or 3.714? More importantly, does nobody in Washington remember "significant figures" from their junior high math classes? One gets the impression that even if the sex-mentions-per-hour plummeted to 0.01, Lieberman would still be railing against Hollywood -- in much the same fervid-but-futile way that Moms used to warn teens about the corrupting influence of Elvis, and that was even before The King grew jowly, middle-aged, and potbellied. No, what really worries me aren't Lieberman's views on network TV. Let's be honest: Prime time television is as moribund nowadays as Dan Quayle's presidential ambitions, and even less interesting to chat about. What worries me is how behind the curve this fellow is. I mean, this guy wants to be able to succeed, in a pinch, Bill Clinton in the Oval Office. Sure, Clinton will be best remembered for unconsummated hummers from Monica, but at least he'd be an entertaining chap to hang out and swill beer with at a Yankees game. You just know that if Lieberman were sitting next to you, he'd whip out his calculator and start adding up how many times per minute each player swore. More to the point, it was Bob Dole who ran against Clinton four years ago by pandering to the right-wingers and whining about Hollywood's "nightmares of depravity." Can't Al & Joe think of anything new? Note to Dems: Big Bob lost. Of course, if the latest polls are any indication, the same thing's going to happen to Al and Joe. Why shouldn't they follow Dole's lead again post-November, if only to escape the ranks of the new unemployed? The former moral crusader and Viagra spokesman -- who has done as much to popularize discussions of problematic penises as Bill Clinton, albeit in a far more lucrative way -- this May inked a deal with Comedy Central, best known for raunchy shows like "South Park" that feature plots such as Satan getting buggered by Saddam Hussein. It may not be traditional family values, but Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms would surely approve. The real problem is what might happen if Lieberman discovers the Internet. He's a smart enough guy, even sponsored the obligatory anti-spam legislation, but then again you'd be hard-pressed nowadays to find any Congresscritter who hasn't. He may even be reasonably wired, might even read his own email, but you know that he's never spent any time mucking around the underbelly of the Net. You don't have to go very far. Just go to altavista.com and type in, say, "foot fetish." Presto! The advanced artificial intelligence of one of the leading search engines kicks in, and you get your neural-network-certified picks: "Female foot fetishes," "bare foot fetishes," "male foot fetishes." The press has made a lot of Lieberman's status as an Orthodox Jew, so one presumes he won't be a fan of jewishfetish.com, even though all the men do appear to be properly circumsized. If Lieberman is so eager to sic those hapless FCC bureaucrats on network television, imagine what he'd do to the Net. He's already been talking about creating a .xxx top level domain for smut, but I don't think he quite realizes how much of it there is out there. So, in the name of brotherly love, don't ever, ever let Joseph Lieberman log on. Sincerely, Declan McCullagh Washington, DC http://www.mccullagh.org/