The Super Bowl is revered almost as much for its showcase of edgy and extravagant commercials as it is for its matchup of the two best teams in football.

The event is one of television’s highest-rated shows of the year with an estimated nearly 1 billion viewers worldwide.

It’s the perfect time on which to unveil new messages that can become more memorable than the athletic match itself.

But some messages don’t belong in that prime time; no matter how creative or truthful they are, as MoveOn.org rightfully learned last week.

The left-wing group had organized a contest called “Bush in 30 Seconds,” in which it solicited commercials with the common theme of criticizing the Bush administration. The winning entry, titled “Child’s Pay,” featured scenes of children working in labor jobs to the backdrop of the question, “Guess who’s going to pay off President Bush’s $1 trillion deficit?”

The ad was rejected by CBS on the grounds that it took part in a “public debate where there are discernible sides,” said Martin D. Franks, an executive vice president of the network. The CBS policy to reject touchy public-policy issue ads has been in place since the 1950s.

MoveOn.org is crying bias and censorship, citing ad campaigns that the White House has been allowed to air during the game the past couple of years.

This included the much-mocked ads that tried to paint a link between the drug trade and international terrorism.

But if an overly zealous anti-drug commercial is the most political ad that’s been aired — an ad which CBS admits may have been a mistake to air — then the network can hardly be accused of trying to curry favor with the Bush administration. If the network wants to try its best to keep the Super Bowl a politics-free zone, then it’s their right to do so.

It is a pity that the ad in question won’t be aired, despite being artfully done and tackling an issue far more important than, say, beer or cellular service. The deficit is in fact ballooning and has caused even conservative groups to speak out in protest.

But the accuracy of the message can’t hide that the ad is ultimately a partisan attack against the Bush administration and thus is justified in being blocked.

Any kind of censorship, even from a corporation, is distasteful.

But the policy ultimately saves CBS from the headache and impossibility of deciding fairly among wealthy special interests groups that are all trying to vie for the most precious real estate in advertising.