CDR: Note to Dems: Don't Let Joseph Lieberman Log On

[Declan McCullagh]

[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]

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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 at 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/