Life after Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction

America can finally move on from Nipplegate, said the Wilmington, Del., News Journal in an editorial. An appeals court this week threw out the $500,000 indecency fine the Federal Communications Commission imposed on CBS for airing a glimpse of singer Janet Jackson’s nipple during the 2004 Super Bowl half-time show. That 9/16 of a second didn't do “irreparable harm” to our morals, after all.

Sending that message just compounds the damage from the infamous "wardrobe malfunction," said Investor’s Business Daily in an editorial. Ninety million people—many of them children—got an unwanted eyeful during Jackson’s raunchy number with Justin Timberlake. Now the court—courtesy of its majority of Bill Clinton appointees—has told the networks that they can ignore standards of decency with impunity.

The FCC can continue cracking down, said the Chicago Tribune in an editorial. It just can't be so Draconian and capricious in the post-Nipplegate world. But for Janet Jackson, there’s no moving on. “Unless she becomes a serial killer or a Nobel Peace Prize winner, she will forever be remembered for her bare right breast.”

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