Written by: Beck

Have you heard the one about the radio station DJs who prank called Castro and then put it on the air? They're being fined $4,000 by the FCC for the prank. Why? Because they didn't obtain permission from the person on the other end.

The hosts of the show on WXDJ-FM, Joe Ferrero and Enrique Santos, fed pleasantries to Castro before breaking in and calling him an assassin. The conversation ended after Castro denounced the callers with a stream of vulgarities.

The FCC concluded Friday that the station should be fined for the broadcast. It rejected the station's claim that a rule requiring people to be notified before their voices are used does not apply to people in Cuba.

Didn't Castro used to be an enemy or something? I thought it was a Good Thing to make him look bad. The question then arises, should the FCC then be making exceptions to the letter of the law? I ask you rather, is the law instead being arbitrarily enforced for reasons of pure bureaucracy politics? Were the prank call victim, say, Donald Rumsfeld, I'll wager that not only would there be no FCC censure, but Rummy would have to not press charges and down play it lest he come off as some sort of villain. Castro, of course, could never be a villain.