I was listening to The Bob Edwards Show this morning, and during the interview with Neil Steinberg a certain scatological term was “bleeped” out. Now we’re all used to hearing certain words (i.e. George Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words,” one of which I heard used on Without a Trace last evening, BTW) bleeped on broadcast radio, but this show is on XM Satellite Radio, which isn’t under the arbitrary thumb of the Federal Communications Commission, So why the bleep?

I wrote a questioning note some weeks ago about another incident where certain words were edited, and received a kind letter from one of the producers explaining that some words simply weren’t considered correct for broadcast on that show. Notice he didn’t say they couldn’t, or even that they shouldn’t, simply that it wasn’t correct for their specific show.

Do they think we’ll swoon from the vapors if we hear these words? Of course not. They simply have decided the level of profanity with which they feel personally comfortable to broadcast, and edit anything past that line. Even while being on a medium where there is no external control, they have set internal limits.

I don’t know about you, but I find this amazing. While loudmouths like Howard Stern are trumpeting a move to satellite radio so they may use every profanity in the dictionary (and some, I’m sure, he’ll make up himself since the current language can’t quite match his lack of taste and imagination), the Edwards Show, which was specifically conceived for a satellite radio network, has used this absolute freedom to ignore the whims of the FCC to allow the drawing of specific lines of taste.

The next time someone tells you the level of discussion in this country is dropping to new lows, point out to them that there are islands of civility in this ocean of perceived crudeness. Freedom is cool…responsibility is even cooler.