Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Quotes from FCC v. Fox Oral Arguments

Two weeks ago I wrote about the U.S. Supreme Court Hearing a Case on Broadcast Indecency. I read the transcript of the oral arguments and found these quotes to be amusing:

JUSTICE BREYER: I just have a practical question. I'm just curious about this. What are the networks supposed to do, or the television stations? They cover a lot of live events. They're not just sports events. They're also like but the Golden -- you know, the Emmys, the Oscars, and you deal with a cross-section of humanity. And my experience is some parts of that cross-section swear.

and this exchange between Justices Stevens and Scalia:

JUSTICE STEVENS: Maybe I shouldn't ask this, but is there ever appropriate for the Commission to take into consideration at all the question whether the particular remark was really hilarious, very, very funny? Some of these things -- you can't help but laugh at. Is that -- is that a proper consideration, do you think?

JUSTICE SCALIA: Oh, it's funny. I mean, bawdy jokes are okay if they are really good.

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