It’s official: both sides oppose free speech
President Bush’s campaign asked a court Wednesday to force the Federal Election Commission to act on its complaints against anti-Bush groups spending millions of dollars in the presidential race, arguing that the FEC is failing to do its job.
In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, the campaign argued that the FEC is taking too long to address what the campaign calls illegal spending of corporate, union and big individual donations to influence the presidential race. Its lawsuit seeks a preliminary injunction that would force the commission to act on its March complaint within 30 days. After that, the campaign could sue to block the groups’ activities through court action rather than relying on the FEC.
“To prevent these 527s from continuing to violate federal election laws, we have asked the federal court to step in and order the FEC to act,” said Tom Josefiak, general counsel for the Bush-Cheney campaign.
The Kerry camp did the same thing. The message from our politicos is you can’t criticize them when they’re running for office.
September 1st, 2004 at 4:48 pm
I question whether the Bush Administration’s actions and the Kerry campaigns actions are indeed equivalent. They would be if libel and slander were protected speech. Maybe they are.
September 1st, 2004 at 7:33 pm
In the political world, “libel” and “slander” are in the eye of the beholder. I for one find it easier to believe Kerry is lying rather than everyone but Kerry.
The real difference between the Bush Administration’s actions and those of Kerry is that one group wants to shut down 527s generally, on a viewpoint-neutral basis, while the other just wants to shut up its own critics. As a First Amendment near-absolutist, I find both actions bad, but not equally bad.
September 1st, 2004 at 10:25 pm
Xrlq:
Except that the official military records back Kerry’s version of the story a lot more closely than the Swift Boat Liars’ version. And that nobody has bothered to question any of this until 35 years after the fact, and a lot of these same guys supported Kerry just a few years ago. The credibility issues with the SBVT group are quite serious.
We at least agree that the actions are not equivalent, we just disagree as to the reasons they’re not equivalent. But it’s pretty clear that both groups are taking their stance for self-serving reasons. Kerry because one such group that is critical of him is getting a lot of attention, even though most of their allegations are demonstrably false. And Bush because 87% of such groups oppose him.
September 1st, 2004 at 11:52 pm
Tgirsch, where do you get your information from? I haven’t been following the controversy as closely as some have, but to the extent that I have, I’ve found the SBVT to be quite credible, and Kerry’s own credibility to be lacking. Christmas in Cambodia may have been “seared, seared” in Kerry’s mind, but for some reason it’s nowhere to be found on his web site today. Less than a week had passed since Chris Matthews kicked Michelle Malkin off his show for suggesting that the wounds underlying one of the Purple Hearts may have been self-inflicted, before suddenly a Kerry spokesman conceded that the allegation may well be true. And don’t even get me started on the war crimes Kerry publicly accused his “band of brothers” of committing, yet did not see fit to report to military authorities for proseuction. Or on the crimes he himself admitted to at the time.
If most of the major allegations against Kerry really are “demonstrably false,” wouldn’t it make more sense for Kerry & Co. to demonstrate their falsity rather than suing to shut them up?