It's all about what he says and how much power he can get from the Dem voters over things. Not the actual issue.
He either punted to the court, like a coward, or he actually likes the bill, it protects him too. Either one is despicable.
It is time for all the armchair strategists to ponder what the political reaction would have been to the following statement and stand it represents:
"I will veto any bill which infringes the right of any American to speak his mind on any subject at any time. The first amendment benefits all Americans and insures all of our other freedoms. I will never sell out the American people for any reason whatsoever."
He would be more popular than he is now across every spectrum of the body politic. He would also have secured his place in history.
But he didn't do that, he doesn't have the courage or the brains.
The First Amendment's restrictions on Congress are more explicit and absolute than those applied by the Fourteenth Amendment to the states. After all, the authors of those amendments never intended to legalize libel or other such practices, but they recognized that since such things fell quite adequately within state jurisdiction and there was thus no need for Congress to legislate them.
Nonetheless, state statutes which attempted to do what this CFR abomination does at a national level have been consistently struck down by courts which held that political speech is speech, and that laws restricting it abridge the rights of free speech.
Bush would have been able to cite from an ample array of court precedents if he were to denounce this abomination as unconstitutional. Unfortunately, he failed to do so.