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Political Speech Double Standard of the Day

Matt Welch | 1.18.2011 11:19 AM


Care of the Miami Herald's great Glenn Garvin (Reason archive here):

[A] big television network schedules a dramatic miniseries that takes a critical look at a popular presidency. Rapacious corporate interests intervene, pressuring the network to cancel it. What happens next?

Well, if the popular president is named Reagan, then America's political progressives revolt against censorship, insisting that the marketplace of ideas can't be ravaged by megacorporate leviathans. Another network steps up -- the series airs! The First Amendment triumphs.

But if the popular president is named Kennedy, the story ends differently. Very differently.

Read the whole tawdry thing here. Follow Garvin on the Twitters here.

Matt Welch is an editor at largeĀ atĀ Reason.

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