Saturday, August 21, 2004

Politics: what rules?

The United States Olympics Committee is questioning the referencing of the Olympics in a Bush-Cheney ad. From the article:

An act of Congress, last revised in 1999, grants the USOC exclusive rights to such terms as "Olympic," derivatives such as "Olympiad" and the five interlocking rings. It also specifically says the organization "shall be nonpolitical and may not promote the candidacy of an individual seeking public office."
Now, how ambiguous is that, really? It's a little absurd, granted, but it's still law, and the Bush campaign seems to be giving the law the middle finger since it refuses to pull the ads. Imagine that. The Bush campaign says that the law only protects the USOC's ability to make profit off the terms and symbols, and since they aren't selling anything, they're ok. The rest of the law isn't written in the article (if there is a rest of the law), but that seems like a pretty out-of-nowhere interpretation to me.

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