Win for the First Amendment? Not So Fast

As usual, the 'victory' for the First Amendment wasn't restorative. Instead, it was predictive. And limited.

Jimmy Kimmel came back onto his after-hours show last night, filled with some remorse, some emotion, and a great deal of posturing about free speech. All of which was fine, and somewhat restorative.

Aha, but not so fast. Two things have stood out in the detritus afterwards:

• Not all affiliates are showing Kimmel anymore. To be noted is the Washington, DC area, where the Sinclair network is making sure 47 doesn't see it; and
• A new, especially notorious, prevention of free speech, potentially far more contentious and far more devastating, is presently taking place within the Pentagon.

To the first: A reminder that, to paraphrase A. J. Liebling, that the only way to guarantee a free press is to buy one. Kimmel is back on about 80% of the stations he once was, but as he himself pointed out, in significantly large population areas such as Portland, OR; St. Louis; and Louisville, he continues to be blacked out. Which means that free speech continues to have a price, whatever that price continues to be. Yes, of course I'm glad he's back, and bemoan the temporary banishment of him from the airways because, as he so aptly put it, "The president can't take a joke." 

What he should have added was, on him. I sincerely hope that Kimmel will get right back on his sarcastic horse, because 47 just made a horrible, incredibly embarrassing (if you're paying any attention and are mindful of his ego problem), speech to the United Nations that will go deep into the annals of complete nonsense. 

And--I might add--his talk at a dinner given him by King Charles of England, in which he looked like a 3rd grader trying to read for the second or third time, is another poorly reported (I found it on You Tube) moment that should make everyone pause about just what we've done to ourselves. The richness of those pathetic performances should give Kimmel and Stephen Colbert plenty of fodder to load their cannons.

To the second: This is The Pentagon Papers writ large. The Pentagon is now demanding that, to report any information inside it, reporters must run it past them first. This is a repeat of what happened more than 50 years ago, when the New York Times and Washington Post discovered, and at first ran, what became known as the Pentagon Papers--a secret, running account of the decisions and strategy encircling our participation in the Vietnam War. They revealed that the government had, in effect, conspired on an ongoing lie as to how it looked upon the fighting that ensued. Predictably, the Nixon administration sued to have these and other papers (including the Milwaukee Journal), in effect, muzzle themselves for reasons of National Security, but the Supreme Court ruled otherwise.

Looks like this situation will have to go to court as well; some media moguls will have to go after it. This is "prior restraint," as it's called: The effort to keep information from the public by creating a self-sustaining barrier. It's exactly what The Pentagon Papers case sought to bar, and--at least back then--exactly what the newspapers sought to overcome. 

But if the president thinks he's king and isn't to be challenged, this is what you get: a firewall that, in case we should be preparing for war--note that 47 wants the Department of Defense's name switched to the Department of War--we would never know until it was imminent.

That doesn't prevent what happened to Jimmy Kimmel from amounting to a big deal: It sure was. But the  Pentagon deal is far, far more important to sustaining the kind of conversation that should happen in a democracy: whether or not to put our young people's lives at risk, or whether to expand the use of the military to take over cities. I wonder whether that has, or will, become common anti-press policy in the other Cabinet departments--State and Treasury Departments come to mind--and if it will soon become accepted practice.

47 and minions are always 'trying stuff' to see if they can get away with it. Jimmy Kimmel's firing and resulting hubbub were perfectly timed to distract us from what might have been surreptitiously planned for weeks, perhaps months. Remember--Project 2025 was in the works, enough to entertain plausible deniability, for quite some time before the last election. All the administration may be doing is continuing to follow the pre-planned script. 

Also note this: along with the reporters' ban comes the story that generals and admirals are being called to the Pentagon for some kind of meeting with Secretary (I hate to capitalize that) Hegseth. Nobody knows why. Could we be going to war without anybody knowing, including Congress? Inquiring minds need to know.

Democracy remains at risk, now more than ever.

Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.

Mister Mark