When five different Senators and Representatives independently attach themselves to the same second-string issue, one tends to assume the issue is a phony, a subject about which it is very easy to posture while spending nothing and upsetting no one. When the issue is television violence, which has been the subject of a dozen high-profile, low-impact congressional hearings since 1952, the Capitol Hill moralizing seems almost retro.
But the spectacle, a classic Washington combination of cynicism and naivete, seems different this time. For one thing, the lead hectors are not Helmsian right-wingers but liberal Democrats, Senator Paul Simon and Representative Edward...
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