Stern: Julian Sanchez has a post up at Hit & Run on the Howard Stern slow-motion debacle. I think he's summed things up fairly nicely. It's of course not in violation of the First Amendment for Clear Channel to dump Stern; however, the FCC can create a "chilling effect," a de facto hostile environment for those who rely on free speech for their living. (To wit, even Rush Limbaugh has defended Stern.)

It's worth remembering that the infamous Hollywood blacklists of the McCarthy era were not mandated by some big brother appendage of the federal government. Rather, they were employment decisions by private companies, free to hire whomever they chose to write and direct movies. But are we able to recognize, at a distance of fifty years, the environment in which these decisions were made, and the political and economic consequences that followed from them? It wasn't illegal, but it was cowardly, and it emphasized the root problem: Because of the implication of intervention, the concentrated attention of the government is, in effect, a basilisk's stare.