It has become a holiday ritual: Joe Lieberman and family-research officials hold a well-attended press conference to decry the impact on children of excessive video game sex and violence.<\/p>\n
And, again in 2006, Lieberman indulged in another yearly ritual: taking campaign money from the entertainment industry.<\/p>\n
An analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog group, found that the Connecticut Democrat, who won re-election last month as an independent, received about $73,000 from a variety of industry sources over the past two years.<\/p>\n
Among the donors were Linda McMahon, chief executive officer of Stamford-based WWE Entertainment. McMahon said in an e-mail that she gave money to Lieberman because “I make contributions to a variety of candidates whom I respect.”<\/p>\n
WWE is well known for its video games and television shows. Its games are usually rated “T,” meaning the content is considered appropriate for ages 13 and up.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
WWE warns parents on its website that, during its more violent shows, “Characters may `hit’ opponents with objects, such as metal chairs, sledgehammers, shiny new trashcans, baking sheets, metal stop signs or kendo sticks,” or may slam opponents “through folding tables, announcer booths, ring barricades and turnbuckles.” In addition, WWE says, “Male characters may body-slam female opponents in the ring, and vice-versa.”<\/p>\n
Massie Ritsch, spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics, said, “If you’re going to portray yourself as a champion against sex and violence on TV and in video games, it certainly doesn’t look like you’re completely serious if one of your big contributors makes its money from sex and violence.”<\/p>\n
No, it certainly doesn’t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sen. Joe Lieberman applies some standards before accepting campaign contributions. For example, when Richard Mellon Scaife, who helped orchestrate the anti-Clinton Arkansas Project, wanted to support Lieberman’s re-election bid, the senator’s campaign returned the money. A Lieberman spokesperson said a Scaife donation “would be inconsistent for our campaign.” And speaking of inconsistencies…. It has become […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9444\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}