Cartoonists With Attitude

I’m surprised with all the talk about Fred Thompson considering a run for the White House, this slight complication hasn’t been brought up until now:

If Fred Thompson, the one-time Tennessee senator better known to most Americans as district attorney Arthur Branch on “Law & Order,” runs for president, some of his fans may be in for a letdown. Television stations are expected to drop reruns of the show temporarily if he makes a real-life bid for the White House.

Federal campaign law requires broadcasters to give all candidates equal time on the airwaves. That rule applies to entertainment programs like “Law & Order,” meaning stations which run the show would be required to give other GOP candidates a like amount of prime time television exposure.

It’s an FCC guideline, so technically it doesn’t apply to cable networks that do multi-hour reruns, but given that most of the networks are at least partially-owned by network companies (Time-Warner owns TNT; GE owns both USA and NBC) they almost always adhere to the same rules to avoid controversy.

In other words, once Thompson’s name appears on a state ballot, any episode of Law & Order with Thompson in it goes away. Not only is that a huge blow to network revenues and fan base, it sort of diminishes a huge factor of Thompson’s electoral advantages: visibility as a character on a popular TV show.

The upshot, of course, is that by the same inference, Thompson’s entrance into the race would also ban any airings of the classic films Baby’s Day Out and Aces: Iron Eagle III. And I think we all know how horrific that would be.