Bono has a well-deserved reputation for speaking out on injustice, so imagine his surprise Tuesday when the nation's justices spoke out against him.
Justice Antonin Scalia -- the go-to writer when the U.S. Supreme Court's conservative majority wants to punch up the judicial dialogue -- counted U2's lead singer among "the foul-mouthed glitteratae from Hollywood."
(Nobody likes to correct Supreme Court justices, particularly when they're in the majority, but Bono was born in Dublin, where he still resides.)
Scalia's comment came in a 5-4 ruling that said the Federal Communications Commission had the authority to penalize Fox for broadcasting "fleeting expletives" uttered by stars during award shows.
So, here is Bono, the ambassador of high-minded rock, champion of the Third World's debtor nations, implacable foe of world hunger, global warming and AIDS, suddenly being called "a potty mouth"?
This, after all, is a guy who has partied with Nelson Mandela.
Talk about human rights chic!
At least Bono has an excuse for his slip at the 2003 Golden Globes. He grew up on the north side of Dublin, where the "F-word" is a form of punctuation.
But what about the other offenders cited for their "fleeting expletives" at the 2002 Billboard Music Awards?
One was Nicole Richie, who used a common synonym for excrement to describe the reality show she did with Paris Hilton. (Does Scalia really object to that sort of honesty?) The other was Cher, a lifetime achievement award winner, who used the F-word to dismiss her critics. (After what's been written about her, she seems entitled.)
Not according to Scalia, who wrote that the FCC "could reasonably conclude that the pervasiveness of foul language and the coarsening of public entertainment in other media such as cable, justify more stringent regulation of broadcast programs so as to give conscientious parents a relatively safe haven for their children."
A safe haven like "The Simple Life" or "Survivor"?
And what would the justice have made of one of Hollywood's most conscientious parents, Julia Roberts, who just the night before the court handed down its ruling unleashed a joking barrage of F-bombs at a Film Society of Lincoln Center event honoring Tom Hanks. (America's sweetheart actress trash-talking Mr. Nice Guy?)
