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

[onenote]

51. WRONG.

Excuse the "shouting" but apparently my earlier post on this subject didn't get your attention. So I'll restate.

The FCC ruled that the FD was no longer in effect in 1987 (in a decision upheld by the courts). But the FCC didn't bother to take the ministerial step of removing the provision from the Code of Federal Regulations (not that unusual in my experience: for example, Congress repealed regulation of rates charged by cable operators for "expanded" service effective 1999, but there are still provisions in the FCC's rules that it hasn't gotten around to deleting that refer to that regulation).

Anyway, in the case of the FD, a bunch of RW legislators trying to drum up a good fundraising issue among their supporters claimed that the fact that the FCC hadn't ever gotten around to deleting the provision from its books after declaring it no longer in effect was somehow a threat to rush and company. That was total BS of course.

But the matter is settled now: on August 22, 2011 the FCC did "formally" remove the dead letter FD from its books (without having to go through the formal rulemaking process that ordinarily would be required if it was repealing a rule that was actually in force). In announcing the deletion of the FD and other "obsolete" rules from the Code of Federal Regulations, the FCC noted that "the Fairness Doctrine is not currently enforced by the FCC and has not been applied for more than 20 years." The FCC went on to state that the elimination of the obsolete Fairness Doctrine regulations will remove an unnecessary distraction....striking this from our books ensures there can be no mistake that what has long been a dead letter remains dead."