Let me just quickly comment on the campaign finance debate underway in the Senate. Like many people, I often think my friend Mickey Kaus stretches things a bit far in looking for cases where liberals have it all wrong.
But not this time. He’s completely right about the amendment to McCain-Feingold which would ban ads by independent expenditure groups in the run up to an election.
As Mickey says, the issue isn’t that this is a great idea but that there are some weird constitutional ‘difficulties’. This is plainly unconstitutional and rightly so! It’s a terrible idea. I understand the impulse. Sort of. But it’s a terrible idea.
Contrary to the claims of many conservatives, I believe that the 1st Amendment applies to far more than narrowly political speech. But political speech is obviously the core of what the Amendment is about.
It can hardly be the case that the 1st Amendment guarantees your right to watch slippery nymphets writhing around on top of each other on the web (just an example that popped into Talking Point’s head, feel free to supply your own pairing) and not the right to advocate political arguments on the eve of an election.
It stands both principle and logic on their heads.
This is a case where the antis have every argument on their side.
Next up, why even trying to ban ‘coordination’ been politicians and independent expenditure groups may be a bad idea.
