Now, the truth can be told. Jonathan Rintels of Center for Creative Voices has tipped Mediacitizen off to a grainy picture that may very well have precipitated FCC Chairman Michael Powell's hasty departure. Dr. Dobson of Focus on Family has called for a full investigation. It was the evangelical preacher-psychologist, Dobson, who last week aimed his zeal and moral outrage at SpongeBob Squarepants saying that any cartoon character that holds hands with his sidekick -- in this case Patrick the starfish -- is clearly fronting a campaign to spread homosexuality among children. Did you get that?
A part of Chairman Powell's legacy will be his own moral "outrage" in the wake of Janet Jackson's now infamous 2004 Super Bowl reveal. This onetime live-and-let-live libertarian thought it prudent to jump on the nanny bandwagon by leveling a series of FCC fines against big media that didn't fly straight. If you think Powell overstepped on this, his was nothing compared to the wave of self censorship that subsequently washed over the industry.
More recent FCC decisions, however, indicate that Powell is now lifting the agency's boot off the neck of broadcasters. It would seem all along that Powell's heart was never in the fight. The picture above tells the rest of the story.
It was posted on Chairman Powell's official FCC website early in 2004; but was since deleted (prudent move Michael). It lives on to see this new light of day thanks to LateFinal.com's Ed Molton -- who cadged and posted the image on his blog after hearing Howard Stern mention it over the air. The picture was also mentioned as an aside in Al Kamen's Post story, yesterday, which got Jonathan snooping for evidence.
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http://mediacitizen.blogspot.com/2005/01/michael-powell-monkey-business.html