"misunderstandings"

From the New York Times, this morning:

Lyrics sung by Pearl Jam criticizing President Bush during a concert last weekend in Chicago should not have been censored during a Webcast by AT&T, a company spokesman said Thursday.

AT&T, through its Blue Room entertainment site, offered a Webcast of the band’s headlining performance Sunday at the Lollapalooza concert. The event was shown with a brief delay so the company could bleep out excessive profanity or nudity.

But monitors hired by AT&T through a vendor also cut two lines from a song to the tune of “Another Brick in the Wall” by Pink Floyd. One was “George Bush leave this world alone,” and the other was “George Bush find yourself another home,” according to the band’s Web site.

The AT&T spokesman, Michael Coe, said that the silencing was a mistake and that the company was working with the vendor that produces the Webcasts to avoid future misunderstandings.

Think about that for a minute. There are people in this country who believe, when hired to screen out naughty language and naked people, that non-profane criticism of George Bush somehow qualifies. We live in a country where it's possible to have such a "misunderstanding".

Bravo, Republicans! Bravo! Why make it an actual crime to criticize the Dear Leader when you can just convince people to censor the criticism as a matter of course?