Posted on 03/24/2002 11:10:34 AM PST by TLBSHOW
Did you notice anything special yesterday? Of course you did! The air was finally cleared and American politicians enjoyed their first full day of purity. We can blame, er thank, Senators John McCain, Russ Feingold, Representatives Chris Shays and Marty Meehan, and Enron's Ken Lay by the way, for liberating our fearless politicians from their own base instincts. The campaign finance bill wouldn't have passed without them.
At long last, money has been eliminated from the political process. Big money, special interest money and at the root of all evil, soft money is finally outlawed. And now that the money has been taken out of politics, so has corruption. Politicians will no longer be forced to corrupt themselves, to be influenced by donors because there will be no more donors! We finally have controlling legal authority in Washington D.C.
Of course, with the good comes the bad. In this case, the First Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech written specifically to protect political speech had to be sacrificed. Ah, who cares - the ends justified the means. In the end we have a system that provides incumbents job security. As for the special interests, those pesky little citizens or groups used to have a right to petition their government, ah, they were a pain in the neck anyway. Good riddance - sayonara.
As of yesterday, American politics is now pure as the wind-driven snow. And our brave political warriors are now elevated to sainthood having won the good fight against us, we the people, and our money. Oh, happy day.
our brave political warriors are now elevated to sainthood having won the good fight against us, we the people, and our money. Oh, happy day.We-the-people are to be fobidden to criticize our betters on a paid ad, but journalists are to be free as birds to say what they want for pay. That is only right, because journalists are objective. We know they are objective, because that's just what they tell us.
Logical.
The origins of the present contretemps trace back to the start of mass marketing in the 1830s, when mass production of newspapers made it necessary to position your newspaper as being "objective" rather than trying to market only to people who agreed with your editorials. But journalism was limited to newsprint, and was unambiguously "the press". Part of it, of course--magazines and books are printed, too . . .
But the real subversion of the First Amendment occured with the institution of broadcasting. Wireless communication is a technology created by we-the-people, but broadcasting was created by the FCC when it granted exclusive high-power transmitting rights to the few and censored transmitting by the many. What was merely cute when radio was in the "early adopter" phase has, now that TV is the undisputed center of political discourse, produced a constitutional morass.
Broadcast journalism is not the free press but de facto an arm of the government--and broadcast political advertisements are effective but hugely expensive. Broadcasting is the entire reason "campaign finance reform" has any political appeal at all. Eliminating politics from broadcasting is not just acceptable but very desirable, even necessary. But journalism is politics--and we need not hold our breath waiting for that to be admitted by journalists.
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