Posted on 05/02/2006 5:20:27 AM PDT by OESY
After John McCain made a statement last week on the Don Imus Show that he would trade the First Amendment for "clean government", one would have expected the industry enabled by that portion of the Bill of Rights to speak out against such talk. Oddly, not one major newspaper addressed the issue until today, when the Washington Examiner takes the Senator to task for his minimization of free political speech:
"James Madison, the prime mover behind the U.S. Constitution, and his colleagues among the Founders rightly feared arrogant men like Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., so they limited the central government to a few, well-defined powers. As further protection, Madison and the first Congress approved the First Amendment to the Constitution to protect forever the right of every American to freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition. ...
"McCain incited a blogstorm Friday with this comment, which epitomizes political arrogance:
'I know that money corrupts … I would rather have a clean government than one where, quote, First Amendment rights are being respected, that has become corrupt. If I had my choice, I’d rather have the clean government.' ...
"Who decides when government is “clean” enough? How “clean” must government be before politicians like McCain will let the rest of us regain our First Amendment rights? Why does McCain think he knows what’s best for Americans better than we Americans do? History teaches the lesson our founders knew so well — those who put their private political vision above everybody else’s essential freedoms cannot be trusted with the reins of power."
The national media has absented themselves from this discussion, and one has to wonder why. It's not the first abstention on free speech issues, either; the media maintained a strange sense of detachment when the FEC got forced into promulgating restrictions on Internet speech, which threatened political blogs of all stripes. For an industry that gets almost hysterical in its self-defense on First Amendment grounds, it appears to have little use for anyone else's free speech rights.
One explanation is that John McCain provided them with an exemption to the worst abridgement of political speech rights in a century. The BCRA specifically exempted newspapers and other media from restrictions on corporate commentary about candidates and referenda within the sixty days of an election. The media seems to want to protect McCain from his own statements by not reporting them or commenting on them, perhaps to keep its two-month monopoly on election commentary intact. After all, if this statement got enough press, people would realize exactly what McCain tried to do with the BCRA -- and it might finally get repealed, allowing everyone to speak out on elections and campaigns regardless of the calendar.
Regardless of the reason, the media's silence on McCain's statement should shame them all. Only the Examiner -- whose editorial pages are run by Mark Tapscott, a blogger -- had the courage to expose McCain.
"Oddly, not one major newspaper addressed the issue until today, when the Washington Examiner takes the Senator to task for his minimization of free political speech:"
--- Its part of the MSM's plan to get McCain the nomination then destroy him in order to help the Dems reclaim the White House & Congress.
Well, at least suppressing free speech cleaned up our government! No crime or bribery anymore, huh?
What a totally ignorant statement to make. If you do away with the first amendment: Clean government will be the first thing to follow it out the door. We get clean government by using the First Amendment and he knows it.Perhaps thats why he is so anxious to do away with it, and his Campaign Finance reform is a step to take away First Amendment rights. This is a dangerously insane man.
Our government including the part he is a member of isnt perfect, it cant be with him as a member of it, but its a hell of a lot better with the First Amendment.
I wonder if McCain thought the North Vietnamese were a "clean government". They certainly weren't advocates of the First Amendment.
I'm starting to think the Vietnamese hit him in the head a few too many times.
Guess who the "special invited guest" will be at the lunch on Tuesday? None other than Senator McCain.
Either that or they and the Russians figured out a way to turn him into a Manchurian Candidate. Since he delibeately violated his oath to uphold the Constitution, he's definitely no straight talker and is unfit for any political office.
Bingo!
I have believed that for many, many years.
There is, and has been, something very, very wrong with McVain for a very long time.
He is one scarey dude!
Since when are the two mutually exclusive?
And McCain is once again wrong........
Money in and of itself doesn't corrupt....It's the LOVE of money.
McCain is a dangerous loon.
There's a typo in the original:
> ... the Founders rightly feared arrogant men
> like Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., ...
That's Sen. John McCain (D,AZ) on FR.
A laughable sentiment from one of The Keating Five.
bttt
It worked for the Soviet Union.
For almost 70 years they had 95%+ voter turnout because they had good clean government which everyone liked ehough to keep re-electing.
They had no natural disasters, Aeroflot never crashed any planes, all their nuclear plants were safe and effective sans containment modules, and every soviet got what they needed and needed what they got. And they had free universal health care (Just ask Hillary).
Get rid of free-speech and the same thing will happen here, and the politicians will tell us all about in the state run media.
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