Bare Bottoms at the Supreme Court

During Supreme Court oral arguments about the FCC's indecency regulations, attorney Seth Waxman, representing ABC, complained about the FCC's arbitrary definition of indecency:

Waxman patiently explains to the rapt justices that ABC was never sanctioned for over a dozen NYPD Blue episodes over nine seasons that included bare buttocks. Not until the last one. Arbitrary, bad FCC. Then, he raises his arms, Moses-like, to the glorious friezes that surround the interior of the ceremonial courtroom. And then Waxman points to one sculpted classical stone lawgiver after another as he guides the justices through the fleeting bottoms that pervade their lofty spaces: “There's a bare buttock there, and there's a bare buttock here,” he marvels. “And there may be more that I hadn't seen. But frankly, I had never focused on it before.” To which Justice Antonin Scalia grits out, “Me neither,” while all of the justices gape up at the walls above them, like bemused Muppets on Veterinarian Hospital.