Corn-Revere: Carr Is 'Bizarro' FCC Chairman
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr’s statements and actions as head of the agency run exactly counter to his prior positions as a commissioner, said the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s Robert Corn-Revere in an article Wednesday in The Dispatch. Corn-Revere served as chief counsel to former FCC Commissioner James Quello.
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Corn-Revere compared Carr to a “Bizarro” version of himself, a reference to a planet in the Superman comic-book series where everything is the opposite of Earth and people operate under a “Bizarro Code,” in which doing the right thing is wrong. As a commissioner, Carr “used to say things that reflected an understanding that the government’s authority to regulate the media is sharply constrained by the First Amendment,” Corn-Revere said. Since the 2024 election result, “‘Bizarro Brendan’ has taken over in earnest, aggressively asserting the kind of government power over speech and the press that normie Brendan professed to abhor.”
As chairman, Carr “has worked out a weird call-and-response routine, where he will post on social media his latest beef with particular networks, which then -- miraculously -- become the subject of [FCC] complaints,” Corn-Revere said. The Center for American Rights recently filed a news distortion complaint against ABC, CBS and NBC just days after Carr posted on X about a similar issue (see 2504210048). Executive orders issued by the White House under President Donald Trump bar the weaponizing of agencies against political opponents and prevent federal officials from abridging free speech, “yet that has been Carr’s primary occupation since becoming FCC Chair,” Corn-Revere said. “That’s because under the Bizarro Code, doing the wrong thing is the point.”