Sometimes politicians couch the truth in humor. This typically happens when they converge for one of their pat-on-the-back dinners, where they’re surrounded by like-minded friends. Events like the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner come to mind.
In the world of communications policymaking, the hubris-fest happens during the annual dinner of the Federal Communications Bar Association – the cadre of specialized lawyers who grease the Federal Communications Commission’s wheels to keep their clients happy. Headlining this year’s dinner was FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, who, by all reports, was quite a crowd-pleaser.
Check some of his jokes, as reported by Broadcasting & Cable:
Martin said his son Luke had been very excited about getting the chance to play with [FCC Commissioner Robert] McDowell’s son, Griffin, Martin added that Griffin was “a little demanding. At first it was unclear whether he wanted to play or not. Some people thought he would. Some People thought he wouldn’t. Finally, he said he would only play if we bought him a suit of armor [yet another reference to McDowell’s recusal from the AT&T/Bell South vote].”
Martin chided [Commissioner Jonathan] Adelstein for his “side deal” with radio stations in a payola settlement. The stations agreed to set aside 4,200 hours of airtime for independent artists. “Ten percent of that set-aside must be used to play the music of a certain harmonica player,” said Martin, flashing a picture of Adelstein, who plays the instrument.
Calling him “the professor of our group” and “Dr. Copps,” Martin said Commissioner Michael Copps had done an “extraordinary job of rallying his troops on the media ownership review,” flashing a picture of Copps as Elvis for his appearance at a Nashville public hearing on media ownership, then as The Pope addressing “the faithful in Columbus,” the site of a town meeting on ownership.
Then came the kicker: “Can you imagine the crowd he’d get if the FCC were actually going to do anything on media ownership.”
But wait, there’s more:
Saying that some people had complained the FCC took way to long to OK the AT&T/Bell South merger, Martin quipped: “I say if we hadn’t broken them up in the first place this wouldn’t be an issue.”
Martin said that Commissioners Copps and Jonathan Adelstein’s traveling around the country arguing that the U.S. was not a broadband leader was “crazy.” He said the U.S. has dozens of broad bands, the Go-Gos, the Bangles, the Dixie Chicks (groans all around).
Much of this might actually be funny, if it didn’t reflect actual policy operations at the FCC.
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