“The only thing that censorship will do is drive the best and brightest members of the U.S. Internet community to countries where they can express themselves without risk of reprisal—and drain the United States of its valuable intellectual capital,” _Interactive Publishing Alert_’s Rosalind Resnick would later write.[6.6] “Personally I’d rather see a few four-letter words flicker across my computer screen every now and then than risk losing talented writers, artists and programmers to our economic competitors.” A mother of two, she counseled parents: “Keep the computer in a public area of the house, such as the den or living room, not in your kid’s bedroom. Warn your kids about the dangers of pedophiles and urge them never to give out their phone number or address to anyone they meet online.” _That_ was a far better approach than Washington-mandated net.censorship, one that could work with the smartest hacker-child. Even the hyper _Post_ article had played up similar solutions. But Jim Exon couldn’t keep his hands off the Net. In a superb illustration of the dark side of electronic democracy, Exon held up a blue binder full of net.smut and, on the C-SPAN television network, argued for censorship of cyberspace. The vote in the Senate was 84 to 16—how could U.S. senators oppose “decency?” Given all the sex scandals on the Hill, it was scene worthy of _Elmer Gantry_, the Sinclair Lewis novel about a moralizing preacher who nonetheless indulges in sex and booze. The book, of course, ends with the Rev. Gantry promising, “We shall yet make these United States a moral nation.” Around the same time the Senate was hoping to Disneyize the Internet, Bob Dole, the Republican majority leader, was protecting Bob Packwood by opposing a move to open the Ethics Committee hearings into the personal behavior of the oversexed senator from Oregon. As reported by the _Washington Post_, Packwood allegedly had grabbed and kissed scads of women—from campaign workers to female staff members, lobbyists, a hotel clerk, and a baby-sitter—“sometimes forcing his tongue into their mouth or fondling them.” Packwood, while not owing up to every particular, had apologized for being “terribly offensive to women.” And now he and Bob Dole had voted for Draconian net.morality? Dole had even teamed up with several other senators, including Charles Grassley, the champion of snoop-friendly software, to offer a cyber-censor bill worse even than Exon’s. The ironies wouldn’t stop. None other than Donna Rice, whose escapades with ex-Senator Gary Hart had helped kill off his political career, was now praying and crusading against cyber smut—as a spokeswoman for an antiporn group.