The Sedan of State

One part of the President's economic package went slamming into contradiction with a decision handed down by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington. By seeking repeal of the 7% excise tax on automobiles and by imposing a new 10% surcharge on foreign imports, Nixon means to stimulate the American automobile industry and its suppliers: steel, glass and the rest. The policy implies the addition of still more American cars to a bumper-to-bumper society.

The court of appeals ruled, however, that automobile and gasoline advertising on television may be in the same class as cigarette advertising, that is, "controversial," and therefore subject to the fairness doctrine. Environmentalists, in other words, rate equal time. Earlier, the Federal Communications Commission had decided that ads for high-powered cars and gas did not offer comparable hazards to those of the ads for cigarettes. "The distinction," said the court, "is not apparent to us, any more than we suppose it is to the asthmatic in New York City, for whom increasing air pollution is a mortal danger." The FCC must now reconsider.

As with the issues of desegregation and busing, the case mordantly suggests that the "ship of state" is actually the "four-door sedan of state," with the Administration and the Judiciary in the front seat, a tangle of legs simultaneously jamming on the brakes and pumping the accelerator. Behind them, the Houses of Congress primp in the rear-view mirror, snooze or practice orotund backseat driving.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.