[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 19509]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    BROADCAST OF PRESIDENTIAL SPEECH

  (Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, last night the President of the United States 
made the moral and the strategic case for confronting the Iraqi regime 
of Saddam Hussein; and for Americans with basic cable it was no doubt a 
compelling and an important night.
  I rise today, Mr. Speaker, as one of the very few former broadcasters 
in this institution, to denounce CBS, ABC, and NBC for the total 
abdication of their public duty in refusing to broadcast the 
President's address to America in this hour of national need.
  Under the Telecommunications Act of 1934, public broadcasting 
companies use the public airwaves; and, therefore, Mr. Speaker, they 
have public duties. As we prepare on this floor to debate sending 
American soldiers into harm's way, it was wrong and appalling for those 
corporations to abdicate their duty.
  Rather than the details of biological and chemical weapons, NBC 
broadcast Fear Factor; rather than the status of the Iraqi nuclear 
weapon system, the King of Queens on CBS; and rather than telling the 
American people of Iraqi complicity with terrorism, the Drew Carey 
Show.
  Mr. Speaker, this is appalling; and it is an absolute abdication of 
their duties under the Act.

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