WHEN POLITICAL SPEECH IS CRIMINAL, ONLY POLITICIANS WILL HAVE FREE SPEECH (or something like that) :

Stranglehold on Speech (Robert J. Samuelson, March 27, 2002, Washington Post)

*Free speech is not selective speech, respectable speech or popular speech. Free speech does not exist unless it can include speech that you -- and perhaps most
people -- despise. People must have, as individuals and as groups, the routine right to express themselves, even if their expressions offend. Somehow these truths
escape the supporters of "campaign finance reform," whose crusade threatens free speech.

*Politics is about interest groups -- of both left and right -- cooperating with sympathetic candidates and officeholders. But close cooperation erases the
distinction between a contribution and campaign spending. If an interest group runs a political ad at a candidate's request, then the money for the ad amounts
to a donation to the candidate. Contribution limits become meaningless. The cure is to outlaw cooperation. But that destroys free speech. People can't talk to
senators, representatives, candidates or their staffs without flirting with illegal cooperation. Groups can't lobby without running the same risk.

*Only the Supreme Court can end the charade. When it considers McCain-Feingold, it should declare most campaign finance regulation unconstitutional. The
alleged evils of money in politics are now overshadowed by the evils of strangling free speech.

Free speech must be a concept that ordinary people can grasp in most ordinary circumstances. It must not become a lawyerly collection of qualifications,
footnotes and regulations, and that is where the campaign finance crusade is leading.

Mr. Samuelson is bang on, again. But the real point here is that W should veto the law since it is unconstitutional. Failure to do so represents a violation of his oath of office. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 27, 2002 7:35 AM