Janet Jackson in Abu Ghraib
: The Independent does quite a pundit’s two-step to tie Janet Jackson’s nipple to Iraq:
It has been impossible to ponder the issue of public morality in America these past few months without wondering whether we aren’t living in weird parallel universes. In the first, 2004 has been the year in which the United States was caught torturing prisoners in Iraq, was accused of lying about weapons of mass destruction, and was deemed to be violating the US constitution and international law by holding so-called “enemy combatants” indefinitely without trial.
In the second universe, none of these matters one jot: not as moral issues, anyway. In this universe – the province of cable television, talk radio and the strangely hermetic corridors of power in Washington – there has been only one noteworthy moral outrage in 2004, one thing to offend the consciences of decent citizens and make them despair of the nation’s moral fibre.
We are talking, of course, of Janet Jackson’s prime-time breast exposure…
Wow, what a stretch.