No, this is not another unhinged, methamphetamine-enhanced rant about John Ashcroft that we're all soooo fond of. It's the other side of the aisle attempting to use the power of the government to coerce silence ... but it hasn't made the "news" so much. Hmmmm.
The Democratic National Committee appealed to the Federal Elections Commission to prevent a broadcaster from televising a public-affairs program,
Stolen Honor, critical of Kerry! The "reasoning" behind this in a minute...
Does anyone remember the DNC and Kerry campaign sending threatening letters to book resellers about
Unfit for Command? or threatening legal action to stop the Swiftie's TV ads?
All of these are instances of free speech and expression of opinions by individuals (severally and collectively) that the supposedly tolerant, open-minded (GOD how they love to lavish that mantle on themselves), freedom-loving Dems want to use the Government to censor.
More accurately, they use the threat of litigation
in terrorem to coerce silence. -- as they did with the Swifties, who haven't been sued and haven't shut up. Mmmmmmaybe it's b/c the Swifties aren't lying. Truth is an absolute defense to a defamation claim, after all.
However, the DNC has no problem with PBS, for example, broadcasting a positive portrayal of Kerry -- hey, that example of free, political speech somehow gets done without comment from the Left. And naturally, the Lefties aren't all wound up about the anti-W bile that's the stock-in-trade for so many media outlets.
This appeal to the FEC (and a threatening letter sent to the CEO of Sinclair, the would-be broadcaster of
Stolen Honor) claims that the broadcast of the documentary violates McCain-Feingold.
This is surreal. I mean, I know the DNC has incredibly low expectations of its rank and file (bordering on contempt, IMHO) but to try this perversion of fact on an intelligent entity just confirms the intensity of the echo chamber in which the DNC operates.
NOTE TO DNC: McCain-Feingold applies to candidates, not broadcasters -- that's why PBS is not required by law to produce a pro-W piece for every pro-Kerry piece it shows. (One wonders how many pro-Kerry pieces it'd produce if it HAD to make a balancing pro-W piece -- I imagine the PBS hefties' heads exploding in a shower of granola and ... well, nothing... at the thought of having to do anything pro-W).
Similarly, the "free time" rule applies to commercials produced by the candidates, not material produced by the broadcaster.
As Frum puts it, "Sinclair has precisely the same obligations to the Kerry campaign as, say,
60 Minutes did to the Bush campaign: which is to say, none whatsoever. And as far as we know, Sinclair seems to be upholding a far higher standard of accuracy and independence in its public affairs programming than
60 Minutes met." Amen.
The Left is so used to a monopoly on the mainstream information media that it can't contain its inherent fascist intolerance of different opinion, even when the resulting display is so awfully embarrassing, and just so ...
telling.
When "entertainers" like the Dixie Chicks or Linda Ronstadt want to bolster their popularity by making severely partisan political comments and the
people react adversely to them (by booing, voting with their wallets, etc.) they cry "censorship". Frequently these martyrs of conscience imply or outright claim that the Government is censoring them somehow. No, Deep Thinkers, it's not the Government, it's the Market -- but the Lefties have trouble distinguishing between the two all the time, don't you?
More often than not, the Left seizes the banner of these neo-Solzhenitsyns and lionize their poor, poor likeminded "victims," calling for an end to "censorship" or "boycotts" of the artists.
The official political representatives of these same folks now want the government, in an act of
actual censorship, to issue a temporary restraining order on the would-be broadcaster of
Stolen Honor. This is not some fringe, lunatic group ... it's the DNC pulling this stunt. OK, well, mabye it
is a fringe lunatic group ... just going by the facts on the ground.
Has the DNC become so hateful, so paranoid and extremist ... so captive to the very extreme of the people it purports to represent that this is what it's become? For the good of the Democratic party, for the good of the country ... I urge you Democrats, moderate and disturbed alike, to change your leadership. We need the Dems, no doubt, but the current crew running the DNC show are doing nobody any favors and have become what the great Democrats of times gone by would despise. Just MHO.
Hey, I told the Red Sox to get rid of Garciaparra too ... I can respect an adversary enough to give them sincere advice.
JP
PS - those of you -- you know who you are -- who would respond with some hyperbolic bologna (what a name for a band!) about the GOP being captive to the Ultra-Right... we know that's the Democratic party line and was used to limited effect in scaring moderates/independents away. But please, start your own thread about it, rather than trying to redirect the thrust of this one. McCain-Feingold doesn't require you to start a "counterbalancing" thread, though.
