I've been trying to find some way to get interested in the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth story, but so help me I just can't get there. I'm not all worked up about who did what in the jungles of Vietnam 35 years ago, just like I don't care whether GWB showed up for National Guard duty one week in Alabama. I mean, big picture, okay?
But today, the Bush campaign handed me the opening I was looking for. In this Reuters article, the President promises to take legal action to get the FEC to ban political ads by outside groups (meaning, 527's), including those attacking John Kerry. This is wrong on SO many levels.
Look - if a group of right-wingers calling themselves Nascar Fans for Tobacco and Justice wants to get together, pool their resources, and put political ads in the newspaper or on TV, they get to do that. Likewise, if a group of granola-crunchies called Wiccans and Druids for Peace and Bunnies wants to do the same, that's fine. Why?
BEACUSE IT IS POLITICAL SPEECH. HEY, MISTER PRESIDENT. THE GOVERNMENT DOESN'T GET TO BAN POLITICAL SPEECH. IT'S CALLED THE FIRST FUCKING AMENDMENT.
The article goes on to say that the case is expected to bog down in the courts and have no effect before the election. Which, in a way, is worse - GWB is attempting to look like a nice guy, bowing and scraping before Saint McCain, knowing full well that it's an empty gesture.
I'm also suspicious of the timing. Coincidentally (you decide), this news came out on the same day that polls are showing - for the first time this year - that Bush is leading Kerry by several points.
VERY NICE, MISTER PRESIDENT. NOW THAT THE DAMAGE IS DONE, YOU CAN CALL OFF YOUR DOGS, WHICH COINCIDENTALLY WOULD MEAN CALLING OFF KERRY'S TOO. ASSHOLE.
Listen: if the government is allowed to get away with telling its citizens that they can't organize and engage in free political speech, then we are well and truly fucked. Write your Senator.
