From the Washington Times, “Free speech for bloggers”:
Here’s our advice to the Federal Election Commission regarding Internet regulations: Tread lightly. If the federal government must apply campaign-finance laws, specifically McCain-Feingold, to the Internet as a federal judge ruled last fall, it should do so with as light a touch as possible. Unfortunately, no matter what the FEC decides, there’s a chance that the days of unbridled political discourse on the Internet are nearing their end.
The good news is that, until the judge’s ruling, the FEC had exempted the Internet from the law. This makes us optimistic that there is little interest among the FEC commissioners to anger the online, pajama-clad bloggers. For instance, included in the FEC’s “Notice of Proposed Rulemaking” is a rule to expand the news-media “exemption” of the law to include Internet news sites. Presumably, this would include bloggers—but don’t be so sure.
[…] As the Center for Democracy and Technology notes, assuming that NPRM is approved in its entirety, an individual planning to express his views on the Web would have to consult Chapter 11 of the Code of Federal Regulations to determine if his speech would be treated as a “public communication”; if his speech qualifies as “express advocacy”; if he qualifies under the news-media exemption; if his Internet activities count as contributions subject to limits; if his Internet activities count as expenditures for reporting purposes; if his use of an employer’s computer to access the Internet is permissible; if his bulk e-mail requires a specific type of disclaimer; and whether his plan to collaborate with someone else on the Internet qualifies as a “political committee” subject to registration and reporting requirements.
Ah, yes! The “maverick” moderate strikes again—this time, his odious McCain-Feingold Act having prepared the ground for a “compromise” on the First Amendment, one that could force online opinion writers to check their thoughts against a set of federal regulatory codes or else risk breaking some law dreamed up by a pair of populist do-gooders to combat a problem that never existed in the first place.
So to recap, not only does John McCain have to his credit a Senatorial judicial compromise that effectively subverts the will of Republican voters by creating a coalition of self-styled “radical moderates” who continue to applaud themselves for their willingness to eschew principle in favor of appearing principled, but he’s also behind a law—one that I and others excoriated President Bush for signing, and one that I continue to believe is unconstitutional—that has had little practical effect on curbing the (dubiously negative) effects of campaign finance spending, but one that will in fact intrude upon the free speech of the kinds of citizen pamphleteers (albeit, of the cyber variety, these days) that the First Amendment was specifically crafted to protect.
Now, how is all this possible, you ask? Because John McCain knows what’s best for you. He’s a maverick who bucks the system, infuriating partisans on both sides of the political divide (as he’ll be the first to tell you). And he’ll be damned if he won’t use the Senate to remake the world in his image—and nothing non-maverick (like, say, the will of the voters, the separation of powers, or the Constitution itself) will stand in the way of this hard-charging, tough-talking populist.
Or as I’m inclined to call him, “nannystatist fucktard.” Because face it: this guy is Bill O’Reilly with a tan.
****
update: More here and here.
McCain puzzles me almost as much as the President and the SCOTUS. What part of
did they all not comprehend? I guess the didn’t want to bother reading all those pesky Amendments…
Should this post be titled “Perfidy: A Sudden Non-Fiction”?
But the dick jokes…those’ll still be allowed, right?
I watched the movie Faith of My Fathers, based on McCain’s memoirs, and I tend to cut him some slack for what he went through as a POW, but damn the rope is starting to get short.
They’ll have to pry the dick out of my cold dead typing fingers.
You’re a great American, Jeff.
I tend to cut McCain some slack too, for the POW thing, and also because the very first date I went on was with a distant cousin of his, and she was smokin’ hot.
It was more than 20 years ago, but she was really hot. Hot enough that I’ll take a lot of shit off of ol’ Maverick.
Taking shit is one thing; watching the attenuation of the First Amendment because of the impulses of a guy who wants to be loved as a wild card is quite another.
You never saw the dude’s cousin, is all I’m sayin’.
Point taken, though.
Freakin’ McCain.. If he’d just pulled one of those Top Gun moves with the airbrakes or somethin and kept himself out of the Hanoi Hilton for 5 years I wouldn’t have to respect his sacrifice so much.. Damn Damn Liberals..(and Maverick Reps).. Its those stinkin ‘Dont Ask-Dont Tell’ policies.. If someone would have just asked him if he was a Maverick Republican and excluded him from military service as a mentally impaired , we could have a good ole time crucifying him now…
I still think war heroes are the ones that kill their enemies. POWs are another breed.
Dude, his plane got shot down. Over enemy territory. It’s not like he wandered away from his position and got caught taking a dump in the jungle.
As a politician, though, the guy’s a self-serving douche.
I have to agree with what was said above. There is no reason McCain can’t be respected as a war hero/POW and ridiculed as the shitty senator he is. “Nannystatist fucktard” and “self-serving douche” aren’t really strong enough to encompass all the problems he has caused.
Turing word “seem”. As in, McCain seems like a maverick when in fact he is just another narcissistic asshole.
Or as I’m inclined to call him, “nannystatist fucktard.†Because face it: this guy is Bill O’Reilly with a tan.
Not to ruin a simile, but, uh, McCain is usually as pink as a field mouse’s ass. Partially because those scars on his face are from removal of skin cancer that almost wacked him.
Whatever.
McCain being compared to O’Reilly? Oh, that stings.
Hmmm.
Hey Jeff can I point out that the worst offenses, at least those that offend you, were done by a **moderate**?
Ya know this fiscal conservative is laughing his ass off at the irony. Or arse off. Take your pick.
I don’t find it ironic at all; I’ve long been critical of McCain’s self-serving “independence” in those instances where it seems to me that he’s willing to trade his principles for the public appearance of being principled.
I hold a few positions that social conservatives would consider either “libertarian” (or liberal Republican, if you like Laura Ingraham’s formulation); but that is quite different than being a consensus-driven centrist.
This is a golden example of why one doesn’t fuck with the constitution for short-term perceived benefits–for ‘pragmatic’ reasons–maybe McCain and Feingold really thought at the beginning that their law would be great for the little guy, taking away the ‘disproportionate’ political power of corporations and the rich. But, irony of ironies, their ‘populist’ law may well destroy, quite simply, the most truly democratic and democratically accountable form of media the world has ever known.
This would be censorship without excuses or apologies–the miserable preening self-satisfied bastards.
Between the useless Democrats, the insane Democrats, the narcissist nihilist ‘centrists’, the ‘moralist’ nanny-state right, and the rest of the Republicans who haven’t got the makings of a single complete spinal cord among the lot of them–all I can say is, thank God the Libertarian Party isn’t, you know, a tiny, powerless, but very exclusive crowd of lunatics, convicted criminals, and tax dodgers.
Oh, wait. . .yes they are.
“Or as I’m inclined to call him, “nannystatist fucktard.†Because face it: this guy is Bill O’Reilly with a tan.”
Ya got me, had coffee in my mouth…good one.
The password is “members”
My concern in recent weeks is that the republican party is going to start eating its own. These “maverick” senators who are bending over backwards and fellating democratic senators are, purposefully or not, causing the problems, forcing the republican party to take sides against each other.
And is it just me or does the conflict really seem to break down into “church going republicans” v. “non-church going republicans” ? Maybe I’m wrong but thats been my perception recently.
Hmmm.
“I don’t find it ironic at all”
Ahh. McCain. What would life be like if we didn’t have McCain?
“And is it just me or does the conflict really seem to break down into “church going republicans†v. “non-church going republicans†? Maybe I’m wrong but thats been my perception recently.”
Not really. Or at least not in my opinion. Going to church doesn’t have much to do with it at all. The definition of a social-con doesn’t necessarily require church going. You can be a card carrying atheist and still feel that having prime time tv shows that extoll the benefits of screwing around, are perhaps not entirely appropriate for younger viewers.
Really the split is more along the conservative vs moderate/libertarian lines. At least that’s how it appears to me. Of course I could be talking completely out of my ass. *shrug* we’ll see.
I previously made a comment on the difference between war heroes and POWs. This rankled several commentators. I realize that I am bucking a virtually universal viewpoint here, but I would like some objective thought on this.
The Audie Murphies of this world helped win the war, the POWs … endured. We may salute the sacrifice of the POW: the pain, humiliation, and loss of part of his life. But being shot down, captured and held prisoner does not help your country win a war.
To paraphrase Patton: “your job is not to be taken prisoner for your country, it’s to take the other guy prisoner.”
Think of it as armadillo wisdom.
There is no reason to cut slack for any tyrant.