-Caveat Lector-
Trillion-Dollar Loophole
Why the media love the McCain-Feingold bill.
By Ann Coulter
Ms. Coulter is also a syndicated columnist
March 22, 2001 10:45 a.m.
In a little-known section of the campaign-finance laws, oil
companies are completely exempted from spending restrictions.
They alone can donate as much money as they see fit, directly to
candidates, in thinly disguised "issue advertising," or
coordinated expenditures. And spend they do. Year in, year out,
oil companies lavish billions of dollars on advertisements
promoting their pet politicians and sponsoring vicious negative
attack ads on the politicians they oppose.
It is no accident that the very first bill taken up by the U.S.
Senate would extend the oil companies' restrictive covenant
prohibiting others from competing with these enormous, vile,
polluting conglomerates.
Except it's not really oil companies. The exemption is for a
much more powerful, vile, polluting conglomerate known as the
news media. Section 431(9)(B)(i) of the campaign-finance laws
wholly exempts from the definition of campaign expenditure: "any
news story, commentary or editorial distributed through the
facilities of any broadcasting station, newspaper, magazine or
other periodical publication."
That's why the media love the McCain-Feingold bill. That's why
"campaign-finance reform" became the first order of business in
the U.S. Senate this term. That's also why the suppression of
political speech by anyone but the news media is popularly known
as "reform" rather than "anti-competitive legislation protecting
an industry cartel."
If campaign expenditures aren't "speech," why is an exception for
the news media necessary?
There can be no meaningful reform of campaign-finance laws until
this completely undeserved monopoly granted by law to a single,
repellant, self-serving industry is repealed. Strip the media of
their exemption from the campaign-finance laws under section
431(9)(B)(i). Then we'll see how enthusiastic they are about
such genius McCain-Feingold "reforms" as banning any mention of a
federal candidate for 60 days before an election.
More important, there can't even be meaningful debate of
campaign-finance laws until the Section 431(9)(B)(i) loophole is
closed. In the past week, a hard-news item in the New York Times
compared John McCain to Don Quixote ("the quixotic Arizona
Republican tilts at the political money establishment"); Time
magazine referred to McCain as "a chipper warrior," a man "who
forgave the Vietnamese despite his captors' hanging him by his
broken arms," and the New York Daily News called McCain simply
"the Vietnam War hero." Liberals can never just make a principled
argument. It has to be Bambi against Hitler.
Needless to say, with this sort of rigorous debate taking place
in the adversary press, the arguments have been sharpened to a
razor's edge. Sen. Joe Lieberman said the country needs
campaign-finance reform because the current system is
"discouraging a lot of people from coming out and voting."
Discouraging people from voting? Why not claim campaign-finance
reform will rescue the NASDAQ?
Even Bill Clinton's favorite journalist, Ron Brownstein of the
Los Angeles Times (as Clinton told Brill's Content), described
Lieberman's insane assertion as "a really hard argument to make."
But Brownstein said "the larger point the senator made" ?!51;
that we need campaign-finance reform — "is correct."
That occurred on CNN Sunday in a program that presented a total
of three opinions: Two from enthusiastic proponents of the
McCain-Feingold bill and one from the guy who pronounced
Lieberman's "larger point" — buried within an idiocy — "correct."
On the same day, ABC's This Week had precisely one guest on
campaign-finance reform. Guess which side he was on?
Campaign-finance "reform" advocate Warren Buffett was hammered
with such tough questions from the adversary press as: "I love
your analysis" and "So it's a shakedown?" Also that day, CBS's
Face the Nation balanced two supporters of McCain-Feingold
against yet another supporter of campaign-finance reform — albeit
not the McCain-Feingold bill.
Evidently, everyone supports the media's exalted role as the sole
disseminators of political information. Everyone, that is,
except a few self-serving and presumptively corrupt U.S.
senators. (No Don Quixotes they.) Americans are clamoring for
more restrictions on their speech. Stop us before we speak
again!
A typical news report on McCain-Feingold stated that the defeat
of the McCain-Feingold bill would preserve "a status quo that
might frustrate Americans but serve politicians." The news report
sadly continued that "despite the taint of scandal, the American
people might not care enough to force change."
But deep down, according to the media, the "American people"
support the media 100 percent!
Meanwhile, in endless polls of the long-suffering "American
people," campaign-finance reform has never ranked among their top
10 concerns. Taxes are always in the top 10. But the Senate
isn't considering Bush's tax cut. It's spending two weeks on a
special-interest bill to expand one industry's monopoly on
information. At least if the oil companies were granted a
monopoly by the government, the media would report it.
=================================================================
Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
*Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
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