Representative Katherine Harris recently gave a speech to the House Government Reform Committee. The full text is on her website. An excerpt:

While we must ensure that dangerous criminals remain where they belong — in prison — I also strongly believe that we must offer more opportunities for rehabilitation.

I was there for that speech. If you saw a video, you might even be able to catch me in the background, looking very uncomfortable when Harris spoke the quote above. Uncomfortable because whatever the prepared text might say, what came out of Harris' mouth wasn't “dangerous criminals.” It was “nature's criminals.”

That comment came at the end of a the speech, and the part about rehabilitation was strictly an afterthought. The first half of the talk was a horror story about “the kidnap, brutal rape and murder of a precious 11-year old girl, Carlie Brucia.” Cue Helen Lvejoy, because Harris stuck to the script for this:

Criminals who use society's second chances to commit further crimes have an undeniable impact upon our communities. Tragically, their actions often affect our most vulnerable citizens: our children.

In response to this tragedy, I introduced legislation entitled Carlie's law during the 108th Congress. This bill would have expanded the grounds for mandatory revocation of probation and supervised release to encompass violent felony crimes or an offense intended to facilitate unlawful sexual conduct with a minor.

The hearing was about increasing services for felons who have served their sentences. By far the majority of these men are non-violent drug offenders; the worst were generally gang members involved in gang-related robbery. When they get out of prison, they can't get a job, can't vote, can't get services — and people wonder why they go right back to dealing drugs and end up back in prison!

D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton gave a long speech, too: a talk about the nearly-insurmountable obstacles released felons face going legit. She was interrupted by the chair and asked to “wrap things up.” But Rep. Harris' long digression into sex crime panic was met with approving nods.

You want sex offenders exempted from this program? Two minutes and everyone on the committee would agree. But Harris wanted to talk about violent sex crimes as much and as often as possible. It's a good obsession for a congresswoman to have. There are at least two must read books (here and here) on how easy it is to tap into America's irrational, pathological fixation with sexual deviancy. (Ironically, the fixation itself is the most unhealthy deviance in the country.)

And it's happening again. The New York Time's Frank Rich sums up the year in the entertainment industry:

On the first anniversary of the Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction that shook the world, it's clear that just one was big enough to wreak havoc. The ensuing Washington indecency crusade has unleashed a wave of self-censorship on American television unrivaled since the McCarthy era, with everyone from the dying D-Day heroes in "Saving Private Ryan" to cuddly animated animals on daytime television getting the ax. Even NBC's presentation of the Olympics last summer, in which actors donned body suits to simulate "nude" ancient Greek statues, is currently under federal investigation.

Public television is now so fearful of crossing its government patrons that it is flirting with self-immolation. Having disowned lesbians in the children's show "Postcards From Buster" and stripped suspect language from "Prime Suspect" on "Masterpiece Theater," PBS is editing its Feb. 23 broadcast of "Dirty War," the HBO-BBC film about a terrorist attack, to remove a glimpse of female nudity in a scene depicting nuclear detoxification. Next thing you know they'll be snipping lascivious flesh out of a documentary about Auschwitz.

I am personally appalled by PBS's lack of balls. I was raised on KUED, the University of Utah's PBS station, and I would like to think that Public Television had more balls. But in general, I disagree with Rich's comparison of the FCC to the McCarthy era. Think instead of the Hays Code in the 1930's. Wait for a bestselling book eerily similar to “Secuction of the Innocent.” Think of the Parents Television Council as the Legion of Decency.

Mark Twain said “history does not repeat itself—it rhymes.” So I'd be weary of drawing specific conclusions from my FCC/Hays Code analogy. Except for one: this thing is just getting started.

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