Message From Corporate Amerika: We'll Support Bush No Matter How Low His Numbers Go

Doesn't AT&T know that Bush is the most unpopular president in a generation? This is from the LA Times:

In a prominent nod to one of the festival's lead sponsors, the logo for this year's Lollapalooza concerts in Chicago includes the tag line, "delivered by AT&T." But Sunday's headliner Pearl Jam complained that AT&T delivered less than the band's full performance during its Lollapalooza webcast. The powerhouse telco turned off the audio during the song "Daughter" while singer Eddie Vedder was railing against President George Bush. That bit of censorship -- which AT&T says was a mistake -- gave a bit of fuel to the forces arguing for "Net neutrality" regulations.

The missing lines -- "George Bush, leave this world alone" and "George Bush find yourself another home" -- are benign compared to some of Vedder's more pointed critiques of Bush and the Iraq war. This isn't exactly "I'm ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas" territory. So you have to wonder what the person who pulled the plug on Vedder was thinking -- or not thinking, as the case may be.

AT&T spokeswoman Tiffany Nels said the company goofed. Its Blue Room website is open to Internet users of all ages, so it tries to block "excessive profanity" from the broadcasts. It hires contractors to monitor the performances, and the broadcasts are delayed slightly to enable monitors to bleep off-color material. But those monitors aren't supposed to edit songs, just the stage patter between them, Nels said. "It's not our policy" to censor performances, Nels said, "and we regret the error." She added, "There was no profanity. It was a mistake." * * *

Yeah, right.

Look, it would still be wrong, but I could almost understand if AT&T did this, say, when Bush's approval rating was soaring into the low-to-mid forty percentile. But Bush's presidency is a complete failure. I thought that everybody knew this.