`Two f-----s down.'

Carl Hiaasen's latest article for the Miami Herald highlights the bizarre level of faux conservatism taking place in America. Why do I say faux? Because it's all surface level. It's all media show and regime induced. It doesn't change reality and it doesn't make the bad things go away. Let's take our collective heads out of the ground and take a look at what's going on...

I've taken the liberty of posting the entire column for those that wouldn't have taken the time to register in order to read it.

Saving viewers from Private RyanViewers saved from the W-word

`Two f-----s down.''

So said Army Staff Sgt. David Bellavia, moments after killing a pair of enemy insurgents during a firefight in Fallujah.

The shooting is described by a Time reporter who accompanied Bellavia's platoon. The account of the battle is published in the magazine's Nov. 22 issue, with the F-word blanked out whenever it was used.

It is likewise blanked out in this column, although your average eighth-grader can tell you tell exactly what Bellavia said.

Soldiers are known to swear, especially after being shot at. You would, too.

There's something ridiculous about censoring expletives from war reporting, but the print news media have always been overly cautious about profanity, regardless of context.

Network television, however, is different. Rough language occasionally has been allowed in news programs, documentaries and drama series, when it was deemed not to be ``gratuitous.''

Now we're told that it's a new day in America, that broadcasters finally must pay heed to those who preach self-defined morality and decency.

Fear was the most common explanation for why 66 ABC affiliate stations refused to broadcast Saving Private Ryan on Veterans Day. Fear of a public outcry and federal sanctions.

The Oscar-winning film, which begins with Steven Spielberg's harrowing and unforgettable reenactment of the D-Day invasion, had aired unedited in 2001 and 2002. This year, though, station executives all across the country turned yellow.

They blamed Janet Jackson's breast. They blamed Bono, the rock singer, for cussing on a live awards telecast. They blamed the Federal Communications Commission for cracking down on so-called obscenity, but failing to offer clear guidelines.

Fretful TV executives pointed first to the F-word, which is used in various forms by the soldiers portrayed in Saving Private Ryan (just as it was used by the nonfictional Sgt. Bellavia and his troops).

It was also the word used more casually by Bono upon accepting a Golden Globe in 2003. Initially, the FCC ruled that the incident didn't violate its indecency standards, but later the agency reversed itself.

Some station managers feared that the profanity in the Spielberg movie would draw heavy fines (even though ABC had offered to pay), and that their broadcast licenses might be challenged by conservative, religious-based groups, a few of which had objected to the film.

The real thing on TV

But there was another perceived problem with Saving Private Ryan, one that wouldn't jeopardize any station's license or draw even the mildest rebuke from the FCC.

It was the W-word -- the graphic depiction of war at a time when the country is seeing the real thing on the front page and the nightly news.

Lee Armstrong, general manager of WSOC-TV in Charlotte, N.C., said that his decision not to show Saving Private Ryan was partly influenced by the fact that ''Americans [are] at war across the world.'' The implication is that it's unpatriotic to televise a combat movie when U.S. soldiers are actually in combat -- a point of view that insults the troops as well as the viewers.

Nonetheless, in place of Saving Private Ryan, WSOC entertained its North Carolina audience with that made-for-TV classic, Return to Mayberry. Talk about obscene.

Bleak and bloody horror

Similar displays of broadcast cowardice occurred in Atlanta, Dallas, New Orleans, Des Moines and other cities with large numbers of veterans.

Ironically, no film in modern memory is as heroic in spirit as Saving Private Ryan. Spielberg paints war as the bleak and bloody horror it is, but the heart of his epic is the courage and tenacity of the American foot soldier.

What better time than during the siege of Fallujah to broadcast such a tribute? Or to remind us of the brutal, exhausting and sometimes tragic confusion of battle?

One station that had no qualms was WPLG-Channel 10 in Miami. ''We didn't need to be saved from Saving Private Ryan,'' said Vice President and General Manager David Boylan. He said that WPLG received ''only two or three'' complaints after the film was aired on Nov. 11. So much for the outcry.

Real-life soldiers

South Floridians survived hearing the F-word. I suspect that they'd even survive seeing it in this column or in Time magazine or if the editors change their standards.

But more important than being able to print unexpurgated quotes from Bellavia is being able to print the unexpurgated story of Iraq. That we can still do, and try to.

However, most people get their news from television. If a local station is so squeamish about the W-word that it cancels a mainstream movie, how much coverage will it devote to real-life soldiers under fire?

By ''saving'' viewers from Private Ryan, those 66 network affiliates sent out a singularly condescending message on Veterans Day: War is heck.