Thursday, August 25, 2005
"Truth in Labeling," But Only For Some
When I testified before the Federal Election Commission earlier this year on the perils of its attempts to regulate free speech on the Internet, the subject of Internet disclaimers came up:
CHAIRMAN THOMAS: ...And one issue that's come out is, you know, what about the hypothetical, I guess it is, it's sort of based on what happened in the South Dakota Senate race, but what about the hypothetical where you're starting to see bloggers being paid by candidates to basically put up friendly commentary? ...
MR. BOULET: ... [T]o my mind, there are some days when I read the Washington Post, and I think it should have a disclaimer "paid for by the Democratic Party." And, you know, others would look at the Washington Times and say there should be a disclaimer on that, too. ...
I just really think that the South Dakota thing, the press will take care of that in any election: any Website, any blog that becomes rah-rah one guy, they'll be looking into it. ...
COMMISSIONER SMITH: I wrote it down in my notes, but in any case--on the disclaimer issue, Mr. Boulet, you said nobody pays you anyway, no campaign pays you, but if some campaign were giving money to English First, right, and you went on CNN or C-SPAN or MSNBC, you wouldn't have to have a disclaimer that, oh, by the way, I'm paid by the campaign, would you?
MR. BOULET: Not that I'm aware of.
COMMISSIONER SMITH: That's not my understanding of the law, either. So to require a blogger to put that kind of disclaimer on would actually be an expansion of the law to bloggers that doesn't apply to other people who are using the press. ...
MR. BOULET: We want to break for lunch, but could I make Commissioner Weintraub feel a little better? ...
I['ve] found that when I talk to a real journalist about a story I participate[d] in, I can go through the article and play "count the mistakes." Yet when I read a story about you, I know every word of it must be true so--
[Laughter.]
COMMISSIONER WEINTRAUB: I've had the same experience.
MR. BOULET: And this is where the Internet and the blogs are so useful as a corrective for that sort of thing.
Attorney Allison Hayward now has taken up the disclaimer question. A taste of her must-read column on the subject:
It's always been clear – or has it? – who's a reporter and what’s a story. But the recent debate over extending the press exemption that exists in current campaign finance law to bloggers and other Internet journalists has hit squarely on a touchy issue: fairness. ...
Those questions were at the heart of testimony by bloggers before the Federal Elections Commission last month. But Washington, D.C. isn't the only place this question is being asked. Recently, a Washington state judge ruled that two radio talk show hosts who supported a state initiative and had allegedly been working with pro-initiative interests, along with the station employing them, must report their support of the initiative as in-kind contributions. The state court’s pronouncement left many wondering about the line between commenting on an issue and "participating" in a campaign.
The lines are getting pretty blurry. The thinking person has to ask: Are we placing a little too much faith in government regulation when it comes to protecting citizens from bias and opinion in political discourse?
Hayward has her own site on election law matters, Skeptic's Eye, which merits both your bookmark and regular reading.
(Hat tip: Redstate.org.)
|posted by Jim on 3:45 PM|
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Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Iraqi Constitution Question for the USA
Via National Review Online today.
Last week, NRO also carried my thoughts on a guestworker program (bad for everyone involved)and immigration defeatism (no, the problem of illegal immigration is not too big to solve).
|posted by Jim on 5:13 PM|
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Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Guest Workers and the Language Question
Eric Weiner looks at the Persian Gulf's guest-worker programs for lessons for America. Here's one:
What happens to a country when most of its workforce is foreign? Many things, it turns out, and none of them good. Arab culture and language are being swamped by the flood of foreigners. In Dubai, for instance, a Moroccan woman I learned about couldn't find a job because she did not speak English. She was, of course, fluent in Arabic, the official language of the United Arab Emirates.
Been to an American construction site lately? No wonder books like this one, the English-Spanish Construction Dictionary, are in high demand. Construction jobs used to be a high-paying refuge for unskilled American workers. (Bruce Springsteen, in The River sang "I got a job workin' construction" for a reason.) Unskilled American workers now cost too much, creating jobs "Americans won't do."
|posted by Jim on 1:04 AM|
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Monday, August 08, 2005
Gone with the Windbag
Rev. Jesse Jackson led a August 6th march through Atlanta, along with the AFL-CIO, MALDEF and the other usual suspects in support of renewing the Voting Rights Act, including its bilingual voting requirements.
No word yet if the event was simulcast in Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese.
First General Sherman. Now Jesse Jackson. Hasn't Atlanta suffered enough?
(Hat tip: In These Times.)
|posted by Jim on 4:24 PM|
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Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Ohio a Warning to Moderate and Conservative Democrats
wellbasically makes a point about yesterday's Ohio Congressional election that Democrats would do well to consider:
The focus on [Paul Hackett's]Iraq war service was always odd. It looks like Dems believe that Republicans win just by waving the flag and being militaristic. So Hackett looked like the ideal candidate, who was militarish [sic] enough to solve that problem. ...
I think Hackett's failure is a real problem for Democrats who believe that it is all about military image. You guys are in trouble.
Watching John Kerry's victory celebration of his win in the 2004 Iowa primary, I remember being struck by his emphasis on his Vietnam service, including bringing some of his fellow "swift boat" vets on stage with him. The Kerry line of attack against George W. Bush looked to be devastatingly effective: "look at my war record and look at his."
Senator Kerry thus made his war record an issue it would not have been otherwise. And you know the rest of that story.
Just as Democratic leaders manage to sound simultaneously both patronizing and ignorant when they speak to values voters about their love of the "New Testament" Book of Job or their care to obey the 12th Commandment, the Ohio result suggest that a military veteran running on an anti-war platform disconcerts more voters than it sways.
|posted by Jim on 8:35 PM|
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