Bush Appoints Telecom Industry Lawyer to Head FCC

The Associated Press reports President Bush is appointing Kevin Martin to head the Federal Communications Commission - the agency that oversees, among other things, broadcasters and cable programmers. Martin, of course, is no stranger to those issues. According to the lawfirm of Wiley, Rein & Fielding where Martin used to work, Martin spent his early career "work[ing] primarily for broadcasters and cable programmers" - most likely, representing them at the lawfirm. Oh, and according to Communications Daily (a trade publication) he also did a stint in Kenneth Star's Office of Special Counsel.

In a sense, Martin is the perfect Bush nominee - someone with both close ties to the industry he's expected to regulate (and thus won't regulate), and a experience pushing an extremist partisan agenda. And make no mistake about it - this is an important appointment because the FCC is playing such a critical role in weakening cross-ownership rules and allowing more media consolidation. During debates over the last few years, Martin used his position as one of the five FCC commissioners to tamp down criticism of the administration and spearhead that deregulatory scourge.