One of the things I like about the government is that no matter how many things it has to do, it can always find the time and money for one more. Even now, with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a major rebuilding project in the Gulf Coast, the Bush administration is taking on another vital project:
Fighting dirty movies.
That's right. The wonderful, but futile, work that Attorney General Ed Meese began during the Reagan administration might have gone into dormancy during the Clinton years, but it is now being revived by Alberto Gonzalez.
Gonzalez, the current attorney general, began recruiting last month for FBI agents to join a new anti- obscenity unit. In an electronic missive to all 56 FBI field offices, the bureau described the new initiative as "one of the top priorities" of Gonzalez.
"The new squad," the Washington Post reported Tuesday, "will divert eight agents, a supervisor and assorted support staff to gather evidence against 'manufacturers and purveyors' of pornography -- not the kind exploiting children, but the kind that depicts, and is marketed to, consenting adults."
"I guess this means we've won the war on terror," one FBI agent told the Post. He spoke on condition of anonymity of course. You don't poke fun at the boss in the bureau. J. Edgar Hoover used to exile people who crossed him to his version of Siberia: Butte, Mont. The Butte office was closed years ago, but there's still El Paso.
The location of FBI offices isn't the only thing that has changed since Meese assembled his group of very interested commissioners -- including two priests and Focus on the Family founder James Dobson -- to declare that pornography is menacing society. Availability of the stuff has exploded.
Porn is no longer limited to Skid Row peep shows and dirty movie houses. It is readily found -- even when you're not looking for it -- on the Web, on cable and in many movie rental establishments.
What's more, anyone who has ever checked out the in-room movies available at major, and some minor, hotel chains knows they aren't all Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. The offerings include a number of so-called adult films whose titles, some services assure the viewer, will not be included on the expense-account bill.
Does this mean we can expect to see Gonzalez stand in front of the department's newly undraped statue of a bare-breasted Spirit of Justice announcing indictments for Marriott, Hilton and Hyatt? (That was where Meese unveiled the rigged report of his commission declaring pornography the cause of several other crimes. Gonzalez's predecessor, John Ashcroft, spent $8,000 to hide the brazen hussy and to avoid similar comic photographs.)
Don't bet on it, any more than the government will go after General Motors Corp. and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., the two major owners of DirecTV, which will zip hard-core movies directly into your living room.
If you're wise, don't bet on much of anything to come of this crusade.
On the crime front, that is. On another front, Gonzalez's relations with the Christian right, one success has already been posted. Religious conservatives have been wary of the AG, who they suspect is soft on abortion. But the Family Research Council applauded his new role as smut buster, declaring "a growing sense of confidence in our new attorney general."
Just whom Gonzalez might go after is a good question, simply because porn has become so commonplace. In order to convict anyone of indecency, prosecutors must, according to the Supreme Court, prove the material in question violates "community standards," has a prurient purpose and is without artistic merit.
That "community standards" hurdle is a tough one to get over. How, for example, can the government expect a jury to convict a dirty movie peddler in any town where couples, or larger ensembles, can be seen copulating on screen in hotel rooms, home TVs or computers and even the public library?
The Bush administration has chosen to fight new wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it is sticking with some antiquated ones at home. The administration declares marijuana the nation's top drug threat while communities across the nation are dealing with the ravages of methamphetamine. And it now proclaims that a good share of the populace goes in for criminal entertainment.
How do I know it's a good share? The rule from Watergate: Follow the money. Porn profits are huge.
That rule was given to reporters Woodward and Bernstein by the informant they dubbed Deep Throat. They got the name from the title of a porn flick.
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Fisher is editor of the Tribune's editorial page. His e-mail address is jfisher@lmtribune.com.
