New Yorker: "A Clear Violation of Obama's Promise"

[merrily]

101. They are complaining about a broken campaign promise. That does not saddle them

with an obligation to give the FCC legal advice, which the FCC does not need. Their article is not about administrative law.

And yes, people can and should complain about broken campaign promises, even if they don't feel compelled to tell a much better staffed and funded entity, the USG, anything else. What the desired end state is that broken campaign promises should not go unremarked.


Things got off the rails here because the issue got deflected here from a broken campaign promise to the excuse that the hands of the FCC are tied. (As if it would have been okay for a Presidential candidate to make that promise without looking into whether it could legally be kept?) And, when some of us said, no, the power is in FCC, we got bogged down in adminstrative law. That does not mean, however, that the authors of the article should have gone down that same silly road.

As for the court ruling, a lot more has been made of that here than seems warranted. Please see Replies 87, 93 and 99. (I may be off on those numbers, but I am referring to Dragonfli's post to me, my reply to her and her reply to me (which I just realized exists--I have not read it yet.

Under all the circumstances, when you said that may nothing in the article could be trusted simply because the authors of an article about a broken campaign had not advised an administrative agency on administrative law, that seemed over the top.