CBS doesn't run ads on "controversial" issues. Well, unless they are White House ads.

CBS Pulls Bush administration ad:

CBS has stopped running the Bush administration's publicly funded ad for the new Medicare prescription drug law pending a review of its content by congressional investigators.

The 30-second ad, titled "Same Medicare. More Benefits," has prompted strong criticism from Democratic lawmakers and a range of interest groups who say it is a barely disguised commercial for President Bush's re-election campaign.

Democrats asked the General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative arm, to examine whether the administration should be using taxpayer money to air the commercial. And several lawmakers have been lobbying network executives to get them to yank the ad, pending the GAO review.

"As soon as we became aware of the investigation, we pulled it," CBS spokesman Dana McClintock said Friday. He said the network stopped airing the ad several days ago.

Interesting.

What's more interesting is that CBS ran the ad in the first place. Flashback to mid-January:

U.S. football fans will not see ads featuring scantily clad vegetarians or a political attack on President Bush during February's Super Bowl after CBS said on Thursday that advocacy advertisements were out of bounds on professional football's biggest day.

The network, over the years, has rejected dozens of advertising proposals by advocacy groups, who argue that the network only airs controversial messages that it agrees with.

,,,

In a letter, CBS told PETA that it would not run advertisements on "controversial issues of public importance."

CBS spokesman Dana McClintock said the policy had been in place for years. "We have a policy against accepting advocacy advertising," he added.

CBS has a policy of not running ads on "controversial issues of public importance," huh? Then why did they accept the Bush administration's Medicare ad in the first place?

Medicare is certainly an issue of public importance. And it's so controversial, a recent House of Representatives vote on the topic featured Republican members of Congress offering a bribe to one of their colleagues in an effort to get him to vote their way.