Will It Ever End?

Our long national nightmare continues.

The FCC had early on–I think it was last August–asked for expedited hearing of CBS' challenge to its $550,000 fine for airing Justin Timberlake's "indecent exposure" of Janet Jackson.

The third circuit court of appeals in Philadelphia has responded by scheduling oral argument for the fall, which means that the decision might not come until 2008, or close to it, four years after this goofy overreaction began to snowball into something that historians will shake their heads at.

I have said before that the Super Bowl halftime show's 18 frames, or less than a seconds, worth of partially exposed breast was unfathomably being treated like some assault on all we as a nation hold dear. That's why there was an uncomfortable irony in the date the court picked to hear the oral arguments: Sept. 11.

By John Eggerton