As I pointed out yesterday, the notion that the courts could order a network to allow a presidential candidate to participate in a debate was absurd on its face. it appears that the Nevada Supreme Court agreed.

The Nevada Supreme Court said Tuesday MSNBC can exclude Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich from a candidate debate.

Lawyers for NBC Universal Inc., had asked the high court to overturn a lower court order that the cable TV news network include the Ohio congressman or pull the plug on broadcasting the debate Tuesday night with Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards.

The state Supreme Court's unanimous order said that blocking the debate unless Kucinich got to participate would be "an unconstitutional prior restraint" on the news network's First Amendment rights. The justices also said the lower court exceeded its jurisdiction by ordering Kucinich's participation even though he first requested and was denied relief from the Federal Communications Commission.

So yes, Glen Greenwald's shilling for Dennis Kucinich to the contrary, yesterday's decision by a Nevada district court judge was a case of gross judicial over-reaching AND judicial activism at its worst. Any outcome other than that reached by the Nevada Supreme Court would have turned every booking decision by a television news show into grounds for a lawsuit if some other individual were bumped due to changing news priorities.

H/T Captain's Quarters

Posted by: Greg at 03:36 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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