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Obama vs The First Amendment
ByJesse Walker harps on Obama's general counsel trying to get an anti-Obama NRA ad off the air:
As a political move, this is stupid. Not only does it cast the campaign as a bunch of speech-squelching bullies, but it makes the ad itself into a story and thus guarantees that more people will see it. (A trivial example: I wouldn't have stuck it in a blog post if it weren't for the controversy.) But of course there's much more on display here than poor political judgment.
Together with similar efforts elsewhere, the incident says something about how a President Obama might approach media regulation....while Obama says he won't restore the Fairness Doctrine, he isn't opposed to other, more subtle ways the authorities can influence what is or isn't said on radio and TV. For those of us who are repelled by John McCain's lousy record on First Amendment issues, it's important to remember that his opponent might not prove to be any better.
