Who Are You? What Do You Want? Where Are You Going? Whom Do You Serve – And Whom Do You Trust?!
I’m sorry, I have no idea if Tom Delay is guilty or innocent. Personally, I think he looks like a snake oil or used car salesman and I wouldn’t play cards wth him.
However, if you’re over 15 and people are still calling you “Ronnie,” then dude, you got issues no matter how many people you’ve indicted. It doesn’t make you “one of the boys,” it doesn’t make you “just plain folk,” it’s creepy. Grow up already.
Just sayin’…
Well, one of them is former Texas Attorney General Dan Morales, who should be getting near the end of his federal prison term just now.
Of course, Jackass Party hacks like to make big on the fact that he has also gone after prominent Democrats.
And he has also gone after some major corporations.
I’m not so sure Mr. Earle’s targets are chosen on strictly partisan grounds. But politics isn’t distinctly red and blue. With that in mind, it does seem to me as though Mr. Earle’s discretion over whom to prosecute or not is politically tainted
This from Gateway Pundit:
The St. Louis area has seen 16 Democrat election workers convicted of voter fraud or similar charges this past year. This past week an obstruction of justice and plotting to murder a government voter fraud witness can be added to that list of Democrat convictions:
Sounds to me like a return of Democratic “machine politics”.
Hat Tip: InstaPundit
Glenn Reynolds has a link and quote-filled post concerning the need for porkbusting and beyond. I particularly like this quote from Mark Tappscott:
Mr. Smith is back in Washington, and his name is Tom Coburn.
When I am home at these hours, I typically watch FNC’s Special Report with Brit Hume, followed immediately by MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews. And the difference in predisposition is almost comical. This is most striking relative to the Wilson/Plame affair. At Fox, they are all asking each other “where’s the crime?” And at MSNBC, they are assuming a crime has been committed, and wondering about the repercussions.
All I can say is that anyone who can piss off both those on the far right and those on the far left is okay in my book.
This from T. A. Frank at TNR:
Condoleezza Rice may, of course, have good reasons not to broach the topic with the Saudis. Men are in charge of Saudi Arabia, and the men can help us, so angering them might be unwise. And perhaps it was impolite of Hughes to bring up the subject. But since when do progressives favor politesse in the face of discrimination? And why, exactly, should liberals like “West Wing” writer Aaron Sorkin be more deferential about the Saudi driving ban than Karen Hughes?
Isolationist conservatives generally take the position that it’s not the proper role of American politicians to comment on another society’s treatment of women. But liberals don’t have that excuse. Instead, their dilemma is by now an old story: For the contemporary left, when any value–in this case, equal rights for women–comes up against the value of not judging other cultures, non-judgment tends to win. The left prizes tolerance so highly that it often refuses to condemn intolerance. (Europe, with a large population of immigrants who oppose the values of the society in which they live, has grappled with this problem for years.)
It’s about time we come to fit with our suit as omnipower, and the global hegemony which it entails. As Americans, we are naturally uncomfortable in wearing it; but it has been forced upon us by the tides of history. But to shun it is to leave its shards to be picked-up by (as Virginia Postrel would put it) the “enemies of the future.” On foreign policy, libertarian first principles are only clear-cut on matters of initiation of force (Even so, the matter of Iraq sheared the libertarian ranks.); restrictions of trade are a more nebulous matter.
Still, as a practical matter, we have to realize that they need us far more than we need them. If you doubt this, just look at prospects for Sunco Oil.
I’ve spent a bit of time this morning reading a few of the comments on Harriet Miers’ SCOTUS nomination. And, as usual, while everyone lacks any real information on her, it seems everyone has an opinion. The common thread seems to be familiarity, or cronyism – the choice of word dependant upon the individual commenter’s predisposition concerning the President. The most measured and insightful comment I’ve seen thusfar is in this post from Eugene Volokh, where he compares Miers to Justices who have preceded her:
My point is simply that when one is looking at Miers’ career and credentials, it may be helpful to avoid comparing her to the current crop of Justices — the natural tendency whenever one is considering a new nominee — but rather to nominees who come from a different, but just as historically well established, mold.
Read the whole thing,
Implicitly, I’m sure most of us knew the claims of (mostly Democratic) pols, principally New York’s Charlie Rangel, that our military draws an inordinately large portion of its ranks from those of limited economic opportunity, was pure bullshit. Now Mark Tapscott gives us the hard facts:
The details of this story are just coming to light. But I think when it finally does, the rest of the country may just rise in outrage, and tell their representitives to flip Louisiana’s one huge finger. Will it cause those citizens to shine the same light on themselves? I’m skeptical.
Update: Here are some links, for those of you who wish to look into this more deeply. But be forwarned, the legislation is about 500 pages long:
September 22, 2005
Press Release
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senators Mary L. Landrieu, D-La., and David Vitter, R-La., today introduced the Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief and Economic Recovery Act, a comprehensive piece of legislation to provide long-term relief and much-needed assistance to the people of Louisiana and the Gulf Coast as they work to recover and rebuild the region.
http://landrieu.senate.gov/%7elandrieu/releases/05/2005922648.html
This from Larry Margasak at AP:
DeLay attorney Steve Brittain said DeLay was accused of a criminal conspiracy along with two associates, John Colyandro, former executive director of a Texas political action committee formed by DeLay, and Jim Ellis, who heads DeLay’s national political committee.
“I have notified the speaker that I will temporarily step aside from my position as majority leader pursuant to rules of the House Republican Conference and the actions of the Travis County district attorney today,” DeLay said.
This should result in a considerable loss of political capital for the GOP.
In today’s NYT, Glenn Reynolds lists five thought-provoking, and telling, questions he would like to see asked of Supreme Court Nominee John Roberts. My favorite is this:
3. Could a human-like artificial intelligence constitute a “person” for purposes of protection under the 14th Amendment, or is such protection limited, by the 14th Amendment’s language, to those who are “born or naturalized in the United States?”
I’m uncomfortable with Glenn’s unqualified use of “born or naturalized in the United States,” as decisions such as Plyer and Wong Wing have since extended equal protection to aliens as well. But the question is still valid, and one I have used, along with others, to discredit the “personhood begins at conception” argument of “pro-life” religious fundimentalists.
And, surely, this is the stuff of science fiction today (see Star Trek: The Next Generation; The Measure of a Man). But the Roberts Court is likely to extend many years into the future. And questions such as this are sure to come-up.
Add your own example(s) of things The President is responsible for. Sarcasm is assumed. Linking to sillines is encouraged.
There is a lively discussion going on over here, which began partly as a disquisition about the similarities between political extremes who go so far around the twist that they meet up with what would be their polar opposites, and has since evolved into a lengthy thread concerning exactly at which point along the political continuum a variety of political extremists should be installed.With some little exasperation, Michael Totten has written
Conservatives who try to rewrite history and make fascists out to be left-wingers remind me of how Noam Chomsky tries to rewrite history and make Stalin out to be a right-winger. It’s comforting, I suppose, to think all the bad people are on one side of a (false) binary political divide and that all the good people are on the other. But it isn’t so. The extremists on your side – whichever side you happen to be on – often strikingly resemble the extremists on the other side. I guess that’s one reason why this argument never ends.
It’s curious that the focus is on the leaders of various movements, but not the followers whose attraction to the movement, and dedication to it’s promises made such movements powers to be reckoned with. I also think it’s curious that no one has tossed out all the left-wing and right-wing labels and invoked the spirit of Eric Hoffer, who incisively examined the curious nature of the “true believer”, the fanatic, the dedicated follower, and pointed out that really, it is only the details of the particular cause that vary. The character of the believer is remarkably consistent— even the vocabulary, the background, the motivations— are as depressingly uniform as the usually bloody outcome of the cause espoused. Political opposites meet on the outer fringes not because their ideology is anything alike… but because they are the same sort of personality.
“The fanatic is perpetually incomplete and insecure. He cannot generate self-assurance out of his individual resources— out of his rejected self—but finds it only by clinging passionately to whatever support he happens to embrace. This passionate attachment is the essence of his blind devotion and religiosity, and he sees in it the source of all virtue and all strength. Through his single-minded devotion is a holding on for dear life, he easily sees himself as the supporter and defender of the holy cause to which he clings. And he is ready to sacrifice his life to demonstrate to himself and others that such indeed is his role. He sacrifices his life to prove his worth…The fanatic cannot be weaned away from his cause by an appeal to his reason or moral sense. He fears compromise and cannot be persuaded to qualify the certitude and righteousness of his holy cause. But he finds no difficulty in swinging suddenly and wildly from one holy cause to another… his passionate attachment is more vital than the quality of the cause to which he is attached… Though they seem at opposite poles, fanatics of all kinds are actually crowded together at one end. It is the fanatic and the moderate who are poles apart and never meet…And it is easier for a fanatic Communist to be converted to fascism, chauvinism, or Catholicism than to become a sober liberal… The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist, but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a God or not.”
My copy of “The True Believer” is an inexpensive paperback copy I had to buy from the student bookstore (price: $.95) in college as a class requirement, scribbled over with many jejune notes, and underlines, the only relic I have kept from that particular class. Philosophy? Political Science? History? I don’t remember— only that it explained clearly to me a certain kind of mind-set, and made plain to me a road in the wilderness, and a way of understanding the horrors that thinking human beings could commit upon each other. And it also made it clear, that one should not pay much attention to what political and intellectual leading lights might say, but that one should watch, rather, what they did.
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? So, every sound tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears evil fruit. A sound tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits. (Matthew 7:15-20
I can’t believe I’ve missed this for over a week. From Conn. Senator Joe Lieberman’s office:
Congress, to the officials of the Bush Administration, and to all Americans to build support for an increase in the size of our army by an additional 80,000 soldiers over the next four years to an end strength of 582, 400. That is what the “United States Army Relief Act of 2005” will do. We take this action because:
We believe that the current pace of troop deployments to Iraq requires too much of the men and women of our Army. Too many of them have been sent there too often and stayed too long and that has had an undesirable affect on their families, their communities, and the capacity of the Army to meet recruitment goals.
We believe that greater Army end strength will give our war fighting commanders in Afghanistan and Iraq the capability they need to surge the number of troops on the ground there if facts on the ground require that.
We are concerned that if other crises occur elsewhere in the world in the years ahead we won’t have the appropriately sized Army trained and ready to go there to deal with these other crises.
And we are concerned that too much of the experienced institutional Army, that part that raises, trains, and supports the combat forces, is being reduced to make up for this combat troop shortage, depriving today’s soldiers of the highest level of training and education and support, and threatening to deprive tomorrow’s soldiers –including particularly tomorrow’s officers–of the knowledge and experience they will need to fight the wars of the future.
Indeed.
This from Brian Faler at WaPo:
The FEC appears to have settled on about half a dozen issues, the most contentious of which is known as the “media exemption.” It refers to provisions that exempt the news media from campaign finance laws, including a nearly 100-year-old law barring corporate contributions to political candidates.
[…]
The FEC is now considering whether rules should apply to publications on the Internet. It announced earlier this year that it is inclined to formally extend the exemption to the Web sites of traditional news operations, along with such sites as Slate, Salon and the Drudge Report that exist only online. The panel did not take a position on granting the protection to bloggers, some of whom have incorporated for liability purposes. Instead, the agency asked the public for comments on the issue and held two days of hearings, much of which focused on the exemption question.
[…]
“Bloggers want it both ways,” said Carol Darr, head of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at George Washington University. “They want to preserve their rights as political activists, donors and even fundraisers — activities regulated by campaign finance laws — yet, at the same time, enjoy the broad exemptions from the campaign finance laws afforded to traditional journalists.”
[…]
The commission, which is evenly split between Republicans and Democrats and needs a majority vote to approve new policy, is expected to decide the issue this fall. Ellen L. Weintraub, one of the Democratic commissioners, said the FEC appears to have all but decided against regulating bloggers and is now hashing out what, if anything, it needs to do to protect them against government oversight. The FEC could give all bloggers the media exemption, or it could massage other provisions in the law to provide what some said would amount to similar protections.
But some bloggers said they won’t be satisfied with anything other than the media exemption. To do otherwise, Moulitsas of Daily Kos said, would be “creating artificial distinctions between what should be media.”
“Keep in mind, this isn’t the unbiased, free and fair journalist exemption. It’s the media exemption. It applies as much to ‘The Daily Show’ as much as it applies to partisan pundits as much as it applies to you at The Washington Post,” he said, referring to Jon Stewart’s satirical news program on cable’s Comedy Central. “There’s no reason why bloggers should be treated any differently.”
Again, this is the reason we need people like Eugene Volokh on the Supreme Court. The farce of campaign finance laws, and the “media exemption” – in the face of erupting technology, has placed us at the precipice of a fall into Constitutional crisis. I don’t have an easy answer here. My first impulse is to advocate total access, with full disclosure. But this is given lie to by the success in furthering the American Revolution, and other great causes, by authors and pamphleteers, most notably Thomas Paine, who published under “Anonymous” or other Nom de’ Plumes.
Hat Tip: InstaPundit
Who better than a former NYC District Attorney? j/k
But seriously, I wonder if there’s not a bit of political theater here, in keeping Thompson’s name in the limelight for a possible 2008 Presidential bid? Personally, I think a Thompson/Rice ticket might be quite formidable.
This on Yahoo News from Ted Rall:
If Newsweek’s report is accurate, Karl Rove is more morally repugnant and more anti-American than Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden, after all, has no affiliation with, and therefore no presumed loyalty to, the United States. Rove, on the other hand, is a U.S. citizen and, as deputy White House chief of staff, a high-ranking official of the U.S. government sworn to uphold and defend our nation, its laws and its interests. Yet he sold out America just to get even with Joe Wilson.
[…]
Rove and his collaborators should quickly resign and face prosecution for betraying their country, but given their sense of personal entitlement impeachment is probably the best we can hope for. Congress, and all Americans, should place patriotism ahead of party loyalty.
If you read the whole article, you will find the by “best we can hope for,” Rall is referring to his earlier calling for Rove’s execution. But tell me Ted, shouldn’t Rove “and his collaborators” wait at least until all the information is in? My information is that, while Time Inc.’s records indicate that Matt Cooper spoke to Rove, they do not expressly say that Rove fingered Plame.
Hat Tip: Gateway Pundit
Update: Well, it looks like Cooper has agreed to testify, under blanket permission from his “source”. Miller’s “source”, whom we might assume to be different from Miller’s, as, if they where going to get the same information from Cooper, Judge Hogan would have no reason to violate privilege (necessity test), and jail Miller. This goes further to “clear” Karl Rove in the “court of public opinion.” But, as grand jury proceedings are secret, Rove will never be found “innocent in fact,” and this will live on, like the “Bush lied” issue.
There are so many conservatives taking so much objection to so many liberals taking such exception to the current administration’s policy, vis-a-vis Iraq, that one is driven to say: “yea, yea, what new do you have to offer?” I was just about to cite yet another liberal vanilla flavored opinion piece, but what’s the point? It’s time to say, “yea, fuck you, and your mother,” and get down to business.
And, history is with us: do you think The Revolution would have succeeded, where it up to popular opinion? How about Truman’s war against Japan? No, there are points in history where the bold must make bold moves. And these are those times.
Straight on the heals of Raich, which establishes that Washington can limit any activity, we now have Kelo, which establishes that we have private property rights only so far as it is convenient to government. In her dissenting opinion, Justice O’Connor says it:
In dissent, O’Connor criticized the majority for abandoning the conservative principle of individual property rights and handing “disproportionate influence and power” to the well-heeled.
“The specter of condemnation hangs over all property,” O’Connor wrote. “Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory.”
At least Justice Kennedy seems to recognize some limits to the license granted to governments by Kelo:
Kennedy was not so reticent. Although he joined the Stevens opinion in full, it is clear from his concurring opinion that he sensed that the prospect of abuse was more evident than Stevens had acknowledged. Since his vote was necessary for the city of New London to prevail, his separate opinion in some sense may be said to be controlling.
According to Kennedy, if an economic development project favors a private developer, “with only incidental or pretextual public benefits,” that would not be tolerated even by applying the minimum standard of “rational basis review.”
His opinion elaborated: “There may be private transfers in which the risk of undetected impermissible favoritism of private parties is so acute that a presumption (rebuttable or otherwise) of invalidity is warranted under the Public Use Clause.” He called it a “demanding level of scrutiny,” thus indicating that it was something like “rational basis-plus.”
He did not spell out such a heightened standard further, saying the Kelo decision “is not the occasion for conjecture as to what sort of cases might justify a more demanding standard.”
Glenn Reynolds sees the probability of political fallout:
I predict that this will be a big political issue, on both the left and the right. For Bush and the Republicans it’s a big vulnerability — if they don’t do anything about it, many conservatives will stay home in disgust at the next election. On the other hand, if they do something — like, say, backing Congressional action to limit takings for private use — they’ll offend wealthy real estate developers, merchants, and influential local populations. They’ll be squeezed, and I don’t think that “help us confirm our judges to reverse this” will be a sufficient answer, though they’ll try to make it one.
On the left, it’s seen (rightly) as a victory for the hated Wal-Mart, and as a rule whose burden is sure to fall mostly on the poor. (When did a city ever level a rich neighborhood for this sort of thing?) On the other hand, the left isn’t big on limits to government power, especially in the economic sphere.
It’s certainly a hot issue on talk radio and in the blogosphere already. I suspect it’ll stay that way through the 2006 elections.
Perhaps this will drive more people to vote Libertarian? That would be a good thing.
Senator Durbin really apologized for his comments comparing us to Nazis etc.. I’m not finding any other text but what the AP put out and that’s kind of sad. It was a better speach than they’re making it out to be. He quoted Lincoln and he did it well.
I’m not sure that it’s anything more than regretting the political fallout, but it’s much more than I ever expected and it was done with much more grace than I thought he was capable of.
Well done sir. I know that had to hurt.
As for a bi-partisan, independant, commision, investigating supposed wrong-doings at Gitmo and elsewhere. Go for it. I have no doubt that our folks haven’t done a damn thing wrong. If any of them have, they need busted.
I am moved by this commentary, from Joseph W. Gauld at the Portland [Maine] Press-Herald:
But our present education system is clearly failing in this responsibility. Former Bowdoin College President Rob Edwards called today’s students “ethically unformed . . . many with anxieties that have been sanctified.”
At our four Hyde Schools, all education is built on the development of character:
Curiosity: I am responsible for my learning; courage: I learn the most about myself by facing challenges; concern: I need a challenging and supportive community to develop my character; leadership: I am a leader by asking the best of myself and others; integrity: I am gifted with a unique potential and conscience is my guide in discovering it.
Once students truly internalize the power of these qualities, we find they are never willing to give them up in life, no matter what the circumstances. And their academic proficiency still sends 97 percent of both Hyde private and public school graduates to four-year colleges.
Since character is primarily developed by example, all Hyde parents and teachers undergo the same process, and they uniformly report the experience transforms their own lives. Their strong growth at Hyde reflects what our educational system had failed to do for them.
But character development is not a part of No Child Left Behind, only numerical results. The resultant corruption is staggering:
Most American schools are fairly safe, it’s true, and the overall risk of being killed in one is less than one in 1.7 million. The data show a general decline in violence in American public schools: The National Center for Education Statistics’ 2004 Indicators of School Crime and Safety shows that the crime victimization rate has been cut in half, declining from 48 violent victimizations per 1,000 students in 1992 to 24 in 2002, the last year for which there are complete statistics.
But that doesn’t mean there has been a decline at every school. Most of the violence is concentrated in a few institutions. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, during the 1999–2000 school year 2 percent of U.S. schools (1,600) accounted for about 50 percent of serious violent incidents—and 7 percent of public schools (5,400) accounted for 75 percent of serious violent incidents. The “persistently dangerous” label exists to identify such institutions.
So why are only 26 schools in the country tagged with it?
The underreporting of dangerous schools is only a subset of a larger problem. The amount of information about schools presented to the general public is at an all-time high, but the information isn’t always useful or accurate.
Thanks to the No Child Left Behind Act, now three years old, parents are seeing more and more data about school performance. Each school now has to give itself an annual report card, with assessment results broken down by poverty, race, ethnicity, disability, and English-language proficiency. Schools also are supposed to accurately and completely report dropout rates and teacher qualifications. The quest for more and better information about school performance has been used as a justification to increase education spending at the local, state, and national levels, with the federal Department of Education alone jacking up spending to nearly $60 billion for fiscal year 2005, up more than $7 billion since 2003.
But while federal and state legislators congratulate themselves for their newfound focus on school accountability, scant attention is being paid to the quality of the data they’re using. Whether the topic is violence, test scores, or dropout rates, school officials have found myriad methods to paint a prettier picture of their performance. These distortions hide the extent of schools’ failures, deceive taxpayers about what our ever-increasing education budgets are buying, and keep kids locked in failing institutions. Meanwhile, Washington—which has set national standards requiring 100 percent of school children to reach proficiency in math and reading by 2014—has been complicit in letting states avoid sanctions by fiddling with their definitions of proficiency.
The federal government is spending billions to improve student achievement while simultaneously granting states license to game the system. As a result, schools have learned to lie with statistics.
But where is the outrage? The Left rails at the excesses of the executives of Enron, Tyco, Global Crossing, et. al.. But public school officials across the nation are getting away with nothing more than a promise to “do better next time” – if that. And the children of our nation are being cheated on a scale that makes the employees, stockholders, and pensioners of these companies look little more than slighted.
I want to see some district superintendents, state secretaries of education, and the like, doing the “perp walk.”
This Brian Murphy – AP report will establish the conventional wisdom for the moment. But my sources tell me it’s hardly the truth. More to come later:
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – Iranian voters streamed to polling stations Friday, snubbing dissidents’ calls for a boycott in the closest presidential race since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Results will decide who inherits a long list of challenges, including nuclear talks with the West and demands for reform at home.
Turnout appeared stronger than expected and polls stayed open an extra four hours, with voting booths even set up at Tehran’s main cemetery for those paying weekly visits to family graves. But the contest could still end with no clear winner, forcing a runoff next week.
Some credited U.S. denunciations of the election for goading more Iranians to cast ballots after a Western-style campaign that has reshaped Iranian politics. A runoff would almost certainly include front-runner Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, a political veteran and leader of the Islamic Revolution who now portrays himself as a steady hand for uneasy times.
On the contrary, I’ve heard of massive rejection of this election. Time will tell.
when a Marine looks at me and asks, “He’s yours isn’t he?” when the Marine is talking about my Senator from the State of Illinois, Dick Durbin. I’ve always been a rather proud son of Chicago Illinois…until this week. For the first time in my life, I’m ashamed of my hometown and state.
In case you’ve been missing the news this week, Senator Durbin compared our brothers and sisters in arms down at Guantanemo Bay to the Nazis, the Soviets running gulags, and Pol Pot, and he did it on the Senate floor.
I was in line at the supermarket this afternoon. And I spied the July issue of Vanity Fair, whose cover featured a very nice picture of Nicole Kidman (She may not act so good, but she shur is purdy.). And one of their headline stories constitutes excerpts from the new book by Edward Klein: The Truth About Hilary, which Matt Drudge reports on here.
Well, with the MJ trial over, the “dirt” of this story, that Chelsea is the result of Bill “raping” Hilary, is sure to be the next tabloid media (read virtually all of MSM) flavor of the week.
But I have to ask, WTF difference does it make? My only concern with the Clintons, at this point, is what constitutes Hilary’s fitness for elected office? How does this effect that?
A new blog, Skeptic’s Eye, by former FEC staffer Allison Hayward, has lots on the comments concerning regulation of the blogosphere. Here’s a bit I really like:
Now, I realize that the cliche about “breathing room” – or “breathing space,” comes from first amendment cases and is not original to the commenters. But, isn’t “breathing space” sort of the minimum “space” necessary to sustain life? I do much more in my day that breathe.
Moreover, “ample” is that slippery kind of word that means different things to different people. Here, the people submitting the comment were also behind the court case that overturned the FEC’s original regulatory exception for the Internet. So, I’d estimate their tastes are more on the lean side than some of us would prefer.
Here’s another rhetorical device: “ordinary” as a modifier bestowing political virtue. That is, commenters advocate that the rule should protect “ordinary” citizens who use the internet, or “ordinary” people who purchase inexpensive advertising (as in the Center for Democracy and Technology’s comment). The modifier suggests there is a group out there of “others” who need not be protected, because they are “extrordinary” in some fashion. It seems to me this device attempts to hide concessions about regulating those “others” – hey they’re not of the people so who cares if they can’t participate, in a way that, at least to me, poses troubling populist tones. Who do we think is working on computers at corporations, labor unions, universities, foundations and party committees? I think an investigation would show that they are “ordinary” people.
The last senence illudes to a statement in the comment: “…individuals using their own ‘computer equipment and services.’” As members of a team blog, are we “individuals?” And just how many blogs don’t rely upon a remote hosting service?
Hat Tip: InstaPundit
Here’s their press release, in full:
To: National Desk
Contact: Republican National Committee Press Office, 202-863-8614
WASHINGTON, June 3 /U.S. Newswire/ — The Republican National Committee (RNC) today submitted comments to the Federal Election Commission regarding the Commission’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Internet Communications.
“The RNC strongly supports a view of the Internet as an open public square where political ideas may be exchanged freely, without burdensome federal oversight or regulation that potentially discourages the use of the Internet in the political arena,” RNC Chief Counsel Tom Josefiak said.
Among the RNC’s suggestions is that many, if not all, bloggers should be included under the FEC’s media exemption rules.
To view a complete copy of the RNC’s comments to the FEC please visit: http://www.gop.com/media/PDFs/InternetCommunicationscomment.pdf
—
Paid for by the Republican National Committee. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate committee.