McCain-Feingold v. Bloggers

Jim Geraghty reports that the Senators who think that funding campaigns isn't free speech are trying to reassure bloggers that they aren't about to be regulated by the FEC, and FEC member Ellen Weintraub tells us to "chill out."

How can we believe that, when we've seen them put limits on campaign donations which are the most basic form of putting one's money where his mouth is, and the Supreme Court upholding that law? I think that the Democrats counted on 527 organizations to do an end run around the campaign finance laws, but one can gauge the actual support by the numbers of donors, not the total dollars collected. That's one reason Bush won. He had a lot more donors in the below-$100.00 range. Most people who can't afford to buy access will come out and vote for someone to whom they've given money.

Still, the fact that this is even being discussed is an indication of the attention bloggers are getting from politicians and journalists who sense that something new is going on that they don't quite understand and can't control. I think the power of bloggers is greatly overrated, and the comparisons to mobs and vigilantes overheated, particulary from reporters who see themselves as the only legitimate purveyors of opinion. There's something anti-democratic about such people, especially when they react reliably to criticism from anyone outside the "profession" as a threat to the Constitution, Liberty and the American Way.

Bloggers are nowhere near as unanimous or even polarized as the news media. They're all over the lot. The ones who have attracted attention are the few who discuss political issues and media in cogent and interesting ways and provide critical perspectives we don't find elsewhere. Basically, blogs are a return to the basic ideals of free speech and free press, that we've been pointed to all our lives. But now that those arguments are turned against those who have been mouthing them all that time, their reactions seem to make all their earlier protestations ring hollow.

What is a journal but a daily record of life? What are journalists, then? Where is the law that says one must have a J-school degree and be paid for one's opinions before they are valid?