<nettime> Register: GW Bush parody Web site escapes FEC axe

["nettime's_roving_reporter" <nettime@bbs.thing.net>]

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/000418-000019.html>

   TUESDAY APRIL 18TH 2000
   
   Posted 18/04/2000 2:21pm by Thomas C. Greene in Washington
   
   GW Bush parody Web site escapes FEC axe
   
   The US Federal Elections Commission (FEC) has declined to act on a
   complaint from election team-mates of Texas Governor and White House
   hopeful George W. Bush which claimed that the operator of a parody Web
   site called gwbush.com was in fact campaigning and should therefore be
   subject to the Commission's plethora of bureaucratic obstacles and
   interference just as they are.

   The Commission rejected the complaint Friday on grounds that the
   matter was too unimportant to warrant its attention. Perhaps the
   Commissioners, like most Americans, were glued to CNN Market Watch on
   Friday, preoccupied graver thoughts like murdering their brokers.

   The Bush complaint argued that Webmaster Zack Exley was campaigning
   and should be brought to heel in compliance with election regulations.

   Team Bush thought Exley should be required to post a disclaimer
   identifying the site's origin, to file with the FEC as a political
   action committee, and to disclose the amount of money spent
   maintaining the site.

   Campaign spokesman Scott McClellan said Team Bush had not condescended
   to pay further attention to Exley or his site since filing the
   complaint last May.

   "We just hope people will use good judgment and common sense,"
   McClellan said. "If you look at all the Web sites, you'll see that
   free speech is alive and well in America, and Governor Bush has a very
   thick skin."

   That's odd; we always thought he was a peevish, puling, vindictive
   political parasite, but perhaps now with the defeat of opponent John
   McCain, the distinction between a hero and patriot who patiently
   endured years of torture in a North Vietnamese gaol and an smirking
   overgrown boy has grown somewhat less apparent.

   Indeed, Team Bush originally cried foul so loudly over the parody site
   that they were single-handedly responsible for publicising it to the
   rude masses, who now, with delicious irony, visit in droves. ®

   The Register and its contents are copyright © 2000, Situation
   Publishing. All rights reserved.


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