They were once called “Great”.
The British press should be regulated by an independent group supported by law and with the power to fine, a judge recommended Thursday in a long-awaited report sparked by a phone-hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid.
Judge Brian Leveson said he was not recommending that Parliament set up a press regulator, but that the industry should create its own, which would be backed by legislation to make sure it meets certain standards of independence and effectiveness.
Prime Minister David Cameron, who asked the judge to prepare the report, told Parliament after its release that he agrees with Leveson’s recommendations for a new, strong, independent press regulator.
He said the onus is now on the press to implement the report’s recommendations, “and implement them radically.”
And Cameron is the “conservative” candidate.
I don’t care how many times they put the word “independent” in front of the new commission’s name. It won’t be.
Don’t think it can’t happen here. Obama has many folks employed or commissioned for the sole purpose of digging up dirt on Fox News and the righty blogosphere. The tools have as their Holy Grail stumbling on something like Murdoch’s mistake.
If you think that the spirit-ware of the 1A will protect us from this Brit sort of meddling, you’d better be prepared to also rely on the hard-ware of the 2A, because Obama never saw a European socialist power-grab that he didn’t want to copy here, and the fine points of the Bill of Rights don’t work as an impediment with him at all.