Does the FCC's failure to fine Limbaugh represent regulatory capture?

[onenote]

21. No.

(Conintuing a discussion we've been having in another thread).

The FCC's failure to fine limpy reflects its understanding of the statutory and Constitutional limits on its authority to regulate the content of speech. Indeed, to the extent that previous FCCs (under repub administrations) tried to go beyond those Constitutional limits they did so in cases brought against big commercial interests, such as Fox and CBS as a sop to the Parents Television Council. That suggests that if the FCC was co-opted, it was by PTC. Fortunately, the PTC has been notably unsuccessful in getting the FCC to do its bidding. And the courts seem well on their way to finding that the FCC shouldn't have gone as far as it did in those cases.

Rush is big fat idiot. But its not the FCC's job to sit in judgment of the content of speech, particularly politically-slanted speech, so long as it doesn't run afoul of the very narrow exceptions carved out for regulating "indecent" and "obscene" speech.