Or to put it another way, Stephen Colbert’s ugly, vulgar and uncivil slur against President Trump may have been unfunny, biased, demeaning to the audience and the network (CBS), and corrosive to political discourse and the culture—it was all of these—but he didn’t violate any regulations or laws.
Yes, it’s always legal to be smug, pandering, hypocritical jerk.
The FCC spokesman confirmed the commission was not launching an investigation regarding the episode in which Colbert broke new ground in gutter language on network TV.For one thing, the “Late Show With Stephen Colbert” is exempt from the FCC’s policies on profanity and indecency because its indecent rules only apply to TV and radio shows airing between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., when children are supposedly not in the audience.
That would not save Colbert if his words were judged legally obscene (and thus not protected speech), but Colbert’s comments would not be found obscene under established court standards. Concludes Constitutional law expert (and Supreme Court appointee-in-waiting) Eugene Volokh:
“The legal analysis sounds quite right to me. I think the broadcast indecency rules are unsound and unconstitutional, and I share Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s and Clarence Thomas’s views that the decision upholding them — FCC v. Pacifica Foundation (1978) — should be reversed. (I also thought that the relevant joke was appalling, but that should be a matter of taste and judgment, not of illegality.) But this particular incident would not be covered by those rules.”
Thus this episode is another example of when something one has a right to do is not necessarily something that it is right to do. Law is one thing, ethics is another.
Meanwhile, Colbert has no right to be a late night TV host either, and if he cannot do so in a dignified, civil and professional manner, he should be relieved of the privilege by a responsible employer—which, we have learned, CBS is not.
__________________________
Pointer: Fred
Ethics Alarms 
Update: is exempt from the FCC’s policies on profanity and indecency because its indecent rules {DON’T} apply to TV and radio shows airing between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.,
Right. Thanks. I ungarbled all that.
Is it ungarbled?
I’m still reading this: “For one thing, the “Late Show With Stephen Colbert” is exempt from the FCC’s policies on profanity and indecency because its indecent rules only apply to TV and radio shows airing between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., when children are supposedly not in the audience.” and feel like I’m reading it incorrectly…
I think he’s got the AM and PM mixed up.
{sigh} and he knew that before he said it…
When Volokh speaks, especially where the first amendment is concerned, he virtually always speaks for me.
Jack,
“Meanwhile, Colbert has no right to be a late night TV host either …”
He does so. He’s found an employer willing to broadcast him far and wide as long as he keeps ratings up (which he has, so far). Meanwhile, he has the constitution to protect what he says and a loyal viewing audience who eats it up. He has EVERY right.
That’s not a RIGHT, Neil. Nobody has a RIGHT to any job.
You walk up to your boss and punch him in the face, and then when he goes to fire you, explain to him that it’s your right to work for him. See how that works.
The law as it now stands gives him PERMISSION to be ugly and obscene, without worry of prosecution. It does not give him any RIGHT to be so.
It’s all money: as long as he has an audience, he will be on the air; When thoughtful people — and as an eternal optimist I think there are many — tune him out, he’ll be gone. It is dollars and cents, unfortunately; ethics has nothing to do with it (more unfortunately).
He defintely has a right to be “ugly and obscene”. That is the nature of our constitutional democracy. It is the government’s burden to prove its case when it finds it necessary to infringe the exercise of any such right.
Right. But who decides when the gov’t takes on this burden?