Yahoo! News - CBS Defends Scrubbing Anti-Bush Super Bowl Ad
NEW YORK (Reuters) - CBS on Wednesday defended its decision not to air an ad attacking President Bush during Sunday's Super Bowl telecast despite objections from some U.S. congressmen who called the move an affront to free speech.

Rep. Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont, sent a letter co-signed by 26 other congressmen to CBS President Leslie Moonves on Wednesday criticizing the network for refusing to run the commercial from activist group MoveOn.org, that criticizes Bush over the rising U.S. deficit.

The network rejected the MoveOn.org ad based on its policy against "advocacy advertising," which it said was designed to prevent those who could afford to advertise from having undue influence on "controversial issues of public importance."

And CBS will decide who gets to have influence, thank you very much. After taking a pass on the Reagan movie, and now this, perhaps CBS should be renamed the "Conservative Broadcasting System".