There is a story, probably apocryphal, that an art dealer in Boston in the 1880's was overstocked with prints of a rather poor nude painting that he couldn't sell. Reading in the paper that the great moralist and censor Anthony Comstock was delivering a lecture in town gave the art dealer an idea.
The art dealer wrote an anonymous letter to Comstock complaining about how a lewd painting at his gallery was corrupting the youth. The dealer then paid a dozen street urchins four bits each to gather in front of his gallery window where the print was on display. Comstock saw the children and publicly denounced the gallery and the painting, by name, in his lecture that evening. The art dealer sold all of the prints of that painting by noon the next day.
Republicans are calling on CBS to fire David Letterman. The controversy will certainly result in a ratings bonanza for Letterman's show. Unless CBS execs have spines of jelly, if they can let this play out, it will be the best thing to happen to Letterman's show since his Madonna interview.
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