Dr. Wertham in '08

In 1954, a cranky psychologist named Frederic Wertham published a book called Seduction of the Innocent, in which he argued that comic books were evil and led directly to juvenile delinquency. His study gave rise to the Comics Code Authority, after which comic books became awfully bland for a few years. When everyone finally realized that Wertham was an evil freak, comics became delightfully nasty again. Contrary to Dr. Wertham's fears, Western Civilization did not collapse as a result.

Half a century later, Sen. Hillary Clinton heard about something called Grand Theft Auto-sort of an interactive comic book-and immediately went on the warpath, claiming that these video games were evil and would lead directly to juvenile delinquency. Last Thursday, she shot a letter off to the FTC, asking for some kind of federal investigation into GTA and similar games, in the hopes of keeping them away from young and impressionable minds. (The senator referred to violent video games as the "silent epidemic" among our children; clearly she's never been around a kid who's actually playing one of the damn things.)

Taking a cue from those other centrist masters of censorship and control, Joe Lieberman and Chuck Schumer, the junior senator apparently believes that the only way to deal with things she doesn't like is to suppress them. And the most vile part? She sent her letter about videogame violence to the FTC the day after she called for an additional 80,000 troops to be sent to Iraq.