Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Smearing Soros:
It's innuendo, but it's pretty repulsive innuendo (at least unless
Dennis Hastert has something to back it up). From Fox News Sunday,
Aug. 29, 2004:
[Host Chris] WALLACE: Let me switch subjects. You both had very
deep reservations about McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform
before it was passed. In fact, I think you say in your book, Mr.
Speaker, that you thought it was the worst piece of legislation
that had been passed by a Republican Congress since you've come to
Washington.
Now that everyone seems upset with these so-called independent 527
groups, whether it's MoveOn.org on the liberal side of the spectrum
or Swift Boat Veterans for Truth on the conservative side, do you
feel like saying, "I told you so"?
HASTERT: Well, you know, that doesn't do any good. You know, but
look behind us at this convention. I remember when I was a kid
watching my first convention in 1992, when both the Democratic
Party and the Republican Party laid out their platform, laid out
their philosophy, and that's what they followed.
Here in this campaign, quote, unquote, "reform," you take party
power away from the party, you take the philosophical ideas away
from the party, and give them to these independent groups.
You know, I don't know where George Soros gets his money. I don't
know where -- if it comes overseas or from drug groups or where it
comes from. And I...
WALLACE: Excuse me?
HASTERT: Well, that's what he's been for a number years -- George
Soros has been for legalizing drugs in this country. So, I mean,
he's got a lot of ancillary interests out there.
WALLACE: You think he may be getting money from the drug cartel?
HASTERT: I'm saying I don't know where groups -- could be people
who support this type of thing. I'm saying we don't know. The fact
is we don't know where this money comes from.
Before, transparency -- and what we're talking about in
transparency in election reform is you know where the money comes
from. You get a $25 check or a $2,500 check or $25,000 check, put
it up on the Internet. You know where it comes from, and there it
is.
Hastert's substantive criticisms of campaign finance may be legitimate
-- but the suggestion that Soros might be getting money from illegal
drug distributors, even as a hypothetical example, is pretty
reprehensible. (Imagine that, say, Ted Kennedy said "I don't know
where Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are getting their money, if it
comes from overseas or from neo-Nazis"; I take it that we'd be pretty
appalled, even if Kennedy was just giving a hypothetical example.) And
while "drug groups" may be slightly ambiguous in other contexts, where
it might refer to pro-drug legalization groups, in this context it
pretty clearly does suggest drug criminals, partly because Hastert
didn't deny the connection when Wallace raised it and partly because
the pro-legalization groups are funded by Soros, not the other way
around.
As [1]Jesse Walker (Hit & Run) points out, illegal drug dealers are
actually likely to oppose drug legalization rather than supporting it:
"Drug prohibition acts as a price support and a barrier to entry; it
helps the cartels maintain their market position. They're about as
likely to fund a legalization campaign as they are to give Denny
Hastert an all-expenses-paid vacation in Bermuda or -- as long as
we're throwing around groundless insinuations -- a free sex tour in
Thailand." But in any event, Hastert shouldn't be making such
unsupported innuendos, whether they make economic sense or not.
References
1. http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/006603.shtml#006603
_______________________________________________
Volokh mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://highsorcery.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/volokh
