GOP's lawyer tries intimidation of TV station

HIGHTOWER: GOP Goes from Ironic to Intimidation
By Jim Hightower, AlterNet
August 5, 2003

Apparently the Bushites think that "Irony" is the name of a far off planet, for they never seem able to see it in their own work.

Irony is George W standing adamantly against affirmative action, oblivious to the obvioius fact that he's the privileged poster-child of America's aggressive affirmative action program for the rich.

But one of the latest actions by the Bushites proves that they couldn't find irony if we let them use the Hubble Telescope. It came in the form of a threatening letter sent to Wisconsin TV stations by the Republican Party's top lawyer, Caroline Hunter. It seems that these stations were airing an ad produced by the Democratic Party, that calls for a bipartisan independent investigation of the false information used by Bush and the White House to mislead the American people about the supposed "imminent threat" posed by weapons of mass destruction they claimed were in Iraq.

The lawyer's letter to the TV stations demanded that they not air this ad because - get this - she blithely says that stations have "no right to willfully spread false information in a deliberate attempt to mislead the American people."

Yoo-hoo, Ms. Hunter, call home once you zoom past Pluto. Oh, the irony! The White House willfully spreads false information to mislead the American people - but if anyone is bold enough to point out this deception, they get slapped with charges of being false and misleading.

Bush's GOP henchwoman wasn't playing pattycake with the TV stations,
either. "As an FCC licensee," she wrote station managers, "you have the responsibility to exercise independent editorial judgment... This letter puts you on notice... you are obligated to refrain from airing this advertisement." That's no small threat, given that the Bushites have politicized the FCC and can make life hell for a local station.

This is Jim Hightower saying... This is more than ironic - it's crass
political intimidation.