FCC To Repel Charge Of The Cuckooberries

A disparate bunch of advocacy groups are trying to save the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from the onslaught of the Cuckooberries.Cuckooberries are almost like Barbarians, with the distinction that Barbarians, while as ruthless as their rampaging Cuckooberry counterparts, were rational and actually fought for something, rather than being systematically against.

Fresh from successfully sacking the citadel of environmental job creation (by assailing Van Jones with baseless charges that, even if based in reality, had nothing to do with the job he was asked to do), the modern-day Alemanni have trained their brainless savagery (pardon the pun) on FCC attorney and adviser Mark Lloyd.

This time, however, the Cuckooberries have met their match. A broad coalition of advocacy groups, from the National Organization for Women (NOW) to the Media and Technology Task Force, and Public Knowledge -- a leading advocacy group defending consumer and First Amendment rights in the technology arena -- have galvanized their efforts to demand that Congress and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) choose competence over capitulation to partisan attacks.

What's at stake here in the very essence of the FCC. Its mission, as validated by the Supreme Court, includes the task of promoting fairness and diversity -- issues that speak to wireless spectrum allocation, cable broadcasting and network neutrality.

The advocacy groups (more than 50 of them!) have written an open letter to Congress and the Federal Communications Commission, which is testifying before the House Communications Subcommittee today, demanding that they

The FCC is likely to take note, and heart, and reject irrational calls for the Lloyd's head, and in the process turn back the tide of nihilism.

We've seen what happens when government is run by ideologues bent on destroying the agency they're charged with leading or, worse, by donor-appointees whose main claim to qualification is a nickname.

We've got a best, perhaps last chance to reassert our right to competent governance, failing which our country will decline and fall because of the repeated charges of Barbarians from within.

I wish I were exaggerating the irrationality and downright nihilism of the attacks, but Glenn Beck, Michael Savage and other nattering nabobs of nihilism have turned the Conservative movement into what Joe Klein recently called the Party of Nihilism. Actually, hyenas of nihilism might be more to the point, baying for blood as they Tweet supporters to dig for dirt on public servants. It worked on Jones, but it won't on Lloyd, and hopefully never more.