FEC Decides that the First Amendment Actually Applies to Bloggers

Posted by Steven Reynolds, The All Spin Zone at 6:25 AM on August 20, 2008.

We bloggers are media! We get to exercise our rights to free speech! Who knew? Well, since we’ve had those rights for a couple hundred years, so I knew. The Federal Election Commission, however, has seen fit to confirm my rights as a blogger to write about . . . politics! Yes, even if I commit the sin of favoring a candidate!

Heck, you can even be political and all that stuff. Nope, you don't need any stinking "freedom of speech" to give you these rights. The FEC has assured them. The whole case evidently extends from a whine by the Clinton campaign against a blog in Iowa advocating for Barack Obama. The report on this action is from mediapost.com:

The agency said last week it dismissed a complaint by a Hillary Clinton supporter alleging that a pro-Barack Obama blog was actually "a direct arm" of the Obama campaign, and therefore subject to campaign finance restrictions.

In its ruling, the FEC reiterated that whatever costs are incurred by running a political blog need not be disclosed as a campaign contribution. "Political blogging is exactly the type of Internet activity that the Commission exempted from the definition of 'contribution' and 'expenditure,'" the FEC stated.

The complaint was brought last October by Clinton supporter Kirk Tofte, who alleged that the blog Iowa True Blue, operated by former Iowa Democratic Party chairman Gordon Fischer, had coordinated with Obama's campaign. Tofte alleged that Fischer endorsed Obama in September, after which he began posting critical items about Clinton.

Such intense whining hurts my ears, even just to read it. I suppose it is past time to bash Hillary Clinton's campaign, but don't you think it a bit unAmerican to complain about someone exercising his free speech? But, wait, wait. . . John McCain has stolen a lot from the Hillary Clinton campaign as far as strategy is concerned. He could steal this whiney strategy of trying to silence pro-Obama bloggers from her campaign, right?

God knows I've been negative about McCain, except for admiring his service (did you know he served as a POW and was tortured?), these last few months. If I were to be conservative and bill my time working against McCain, and therefore for Obama, I'd likely calculate a contribution of tens of thousands of dollars added up these last few months. At $50 per hour, I would have billed about $75 for Obama already this morning. Yeah, based on such calculations I've probably maxed out or something. There's the angle McCain and his campaign will use to attempt to silence bloggers who are critical of him. You read it here first.

Free speech? It sure is fun, isn't it?

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Steven Reynolds is a regular blogger for the All Spin Zone