Controversy

I came across this passage the other day from Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom:

From 1933 to the outbreak of World War II, [Winston] Churchill was not permitted to talk over the British radio, which was, of course, a government monopoly administered by the British Broadcasting Corporation. Here was a leading citizen of his country, a Member of Parliament, a former cabinet minister, a man who was desperately trying by every device possible to persuade his countrymen to take steps to ward off the menace of Hitler's Germany. He was not permitted to talk over the radio to the British people because the BBC was a government monopoly and his position was too "controversial."

Something to consider next time you hear a public figure dismissed for being controversial rather than for a specific criticism.