ARTS & FARCES internet

William Saffire begins his column in The New York Times this morning with a quote from the U.S. Criminal Code:

Whoever, having devised any scheme or artifice to defraud transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both. U.S. Criminal Code, Chapter 63, Section 1343.

Saffire then goes on to write that the (so-far unnamed) CBS Rathergate sources may be felons. Huh? At what point in the republic’s history did elections become commerce? Who was defrauded? In order for Saffire’s theory to hold water, CBS would have to be the victim in this matter, right? Or would CBS also be guilty of the purported felony? Or what if the Democrat’s wet dream comes true and Karl Rove engineered the whole thing, as Maureen Dowd speculates in her column on Monday?

What conveniently gets lost in the mix is that all indications are that the information in the fake documents is correct.

But back to Saffire’s theory. If elections are commerce, why aren’t campaign ads subject to truth-in-advertising? It’s not just the major political parties that don’t want that particular can of worms opened; count on corporate media—especially the broadcasters—not allowing it to happen. As Robert McChesney notes in The Problem of the Media, “... political advertising has replaced press coverage as the main vehicle by which candidates are exposed to the citizenry. In 2002, for example, a viewer was four times more likely to see a political ad during a TV newscast than to see an election-related story….”