Wednesday, June 01, 2005
You and the FEC
In the same way that I’m not all that worked up about Deep Throat, I’m also failing to catch the outrage at the FEC proposal fever. There are probably various reasons for this:
First, I’m kind of tired, and when I’m tired it’s hard to get me upset about anything other than traffic, rude pedestrians in parking lots, and people who stand too close to me in line at the bank.
Second, I’m not sure I understand the hubub. What I’ve seen--that paid political ads on Web sites have their sponsorship declared in the same way that TV ads have theirs declared--doesn’t bother me. I’m fairly sure that I’m missing something, though. Since I’ve only spent the smallest bit of attention to the proposal, that’s not terribly surprising. I plan to spend a portion of my day finding out why the ‘sphere is in such an uproar.
Third, I have a tendency to not pay attention to the rules and laws that I don’t like. I’m arrogantly stupid that way.
Anyway, having said that, I think that I will start my reading with The American Mind and Michelle Malkin.
Update: More.
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Comments & Trackbacks
I’m not sure anyone is really concerned about that ad declaration provision. I’m worried about the idea that a blog that is explicitly for a candidate might be counted as a political contribution. Then you run into all sorts of problems, especially if that contribution is somehow valued at more that the donation limit of 2 grand.
Plus, I think it’s a slippery slope. McCain-Feingold is an abomination and it’s only going to get worse. Remember that McCain thinks the Swift Vets (who contributed mightly to getting his party’s candidate elected) used a loophole that should be closed in aught-eight. If he’d had his way those ads would never have been aired, and tens of thousands would never have known that someone was raising legitimate questions about Kerry’s Vietnam service (while they would have known about the attacks on Bush since those were being led by the MSM).
Anyway, in 2008 they’ll tell you to declare your advertisers, in 2012 they’ll tell you you have to have partisan “balance” or be declared an illegal donation, in 2016 you won’t be able to mention candidates by name within 60 days of an election, and by 2020 every political blog in America will be hosted on servers in China.
McCain-Feingold should have been vetoed by the veto-less President, I’ll agree, and you make some very good points. Like I said, I think I should read more and, maybe, I’ll be as concerned as everyone else.
The one thing that I’ll stick with, though, is that transparency isn’t a bad thing. If someone pays for a political ad, I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with knowing who that organization is; likewise, if someone pays me to write a position paper, I think I have some obligation to acknowledge where that support is coming from (think Armstrong Williams).
I was tempted to laugh at the need for balance portion, but didn’t someone already float the idea somewhere in Europe of forcing sites like blogs to allow for “balanced” views?