Sometimes you choose sides in a battle by taking a look at the combatants on either side. In the war of Brass Eye against its critics, it seems like a straight choice. Ranged on one side are the Daily Mail, assorted rent-a-gob Conservative MPs and a nannying trio of government ministers: David Blunkett, Tessa Jowell and Beverley Hughes. They have all condemned the weekend programme on child sex abuse. On the other side, are the hip, cutting edge folk of Channel 4 standing by their "maverick" satirist Chris Morris.
It would seem like a no-brainer. Prudes, puritans and censors on one side; artists, free thinkers and dissenters on the other. Who would want to be on the anti-Morris team, among Frederick Forsyth and the other harrumphers? Not Guardian readers, it would seem - at least not those who have been writing to our letters page.
As it happens, we do not stand with Channel 4 on the substance of the programme. Brass Eye was a deeply unpleasant piece of television that degraded children much more than it satirised either the media or celebrities or politicians. If it did lift the lid on a taboo, it was the taboo that says the sexual abuse of children is not to be taken lightly - a taboo which exists for good reason. Shock is not the same as satire.
For all that, on two key questions we side with Channel 4. First, and it really should not need stating, politicians cannot criticise books or films or TV programmes they have not seen. It is as simple as that. To quote partial "transcripts" of the programme is not good enough, and seems to confirm one of Brass Eye's main theses: that politicians all too often jump on bandwagons set in train by the media.
Second, even if Ms Jowell and her colleagues had seen the TV show and loathed every minute of it, what possible business is it of theirs? For the culture secretary to speak directly to the head of a TV network about a specific programme smacks of the Soviet commissar and the state broadcaster. Happily, the culture secretary is not the editor-in-chief of the nation's TV networks; it is not up to her what they show.
More happily still, there is a statutory body to do that job of invigilation instead. The Independent Television Commission, or ITC, was set up by parliament to monitor networks like Channel 4. It will have to adjudicate on whether the station took the right decision on Brass Eye and, if it did not, what penalty it should pay. This is a sound arrangement, designed to avoid cases of political interference - keeping the broadcasters out of the politicians' reach. Those who remember the heavy-handed attempts by a Conservative government to keep the Real Lives documentary on Northern Ireland off BBC television are grateful such an arms-length mechanism exists.
Ms Jowell may claim that her involvement is different from the Real Lives case because she is exerting no pressure on Channel 4. But the nature of her post is such that any intervention she makes counts as government pressure on the broadcaster. We are not against scrutiny of the media: it is a powerful interest that needs to be checked like any other. But that is what the ITC is there for - not the culture secretary.
The minister may say she is simply voicing popular anger. That is a big claim since neither she, nor we, can have any idea what the public mood is: 2,000 viewers complained, but hundreds of thousands did not. Perhaps Ms Jowell should have been one of those complainants - Tessa from Dulwich ringing the C4 viewer line. As it happens, we would have agreed with her.