W and campaign finance reform

<Grumble>

 

To commemorate the president denouncing this past week the "527" organizations that inevitably arose as a way around the McCain-Feingold Free Speech Strangulation Act (also known as campaign finance reform), Ramesh Ponnuru gives a quick history of Bush's evolving position on campaign finance:

1) I'm against it, and you should vote for me over John McCain on this basis.

 

2) Some campaign-finance reforms amount to a restriction on free speech, and I'll veto them on that basis.

 

3) I'll sign the bill, let the judges sort it out.

 

4) The bill I just signed bans all those George Soros ads.

 

5) I'm going to sue to get those ads all banned.

 

6) I'm going to support legislation to ban those ads that I already banned, even though they used to be free speech.

 

I think (5) and (6) are new this week.

McCain-Feingold stinks, the president knew it when he signed it, but he signed it anyway (in the mistaken assumption that the Supremes would strike it down -- as if it were the sole prerogative of the courts to determine the constitutionality of laws). 

 

Absent the war, we would likely have seen a much greater conservative rebellion against Bush because of 'accomplishments' like this.

 

</Grumble>

 

P.S. He still has my vote.  I just had to get that off my chest.