by Teh Nutroots | ...because by fulfilling the purpose of the first amendment calling her out on her negative attacks (including the straight-up lies), they are repressing her free speech rights. Who the hell knows what Palin means when she starts blathering about the many, many things she knows nothing about? Forget the Vice Presidency; I'd question, based on this, whether she's qualified to be governor of Alaska.
Can't someone in the McCain campaign please provide Sarah Palin with a pocket copy of the Constitution or something? Or at least access to Wikipedia? Or do John McCain and his campaign care as little about the constitution as George W. Bush, who infamously called it a "goddamned piece of paper"? This is high school civics, people. The Constitution says:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
It's not as if she really needed a Glenn Greenwald to explain it to her. Even a quick glance at the people's encyclopedia, Wikipedia, would have kept her from embarrassing herself:
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that expressly prohibits the United States Congress from making laws....that infringe the freedom of speech, infringe the freedom of the press...
Although the First Amendment explicitly prohibits only the named rights from being abridged by laws made by the Congress, the Supreme Court has interpreted it as applying more broadly. As the first sentence in the body of the Constitution reserves all legislative authority to the Congress, the courts have held that the First Amendment's terms also extend to the executive and judicial branches. Additionally, in the 20th century the Supreme Court held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applies the limitations of the First Amendment to each state, including any local government within a state.
Even Conservapedia could have explained this much of it to her:
This is generally taken as a limitation on the power of the federal goverment (sic)...
But here is what Palin went on the radio and said:
Sarah Palin said she fears her First Amendment rights may be threatened by "attacks" from reporters who suggest she is engaging in a negative campaign against Barack Obama.
Palin told WMAL-AM that her criticism of Obama's associations, like those with 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, should not be considered negative attacks. Rather, for reporters or columnists to suggest that it is going negative may constitute an attack that threatens a candidate's free speech rights under the Constitution, Palin said.
"If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations," Palin told host Chris Plante, "then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media."(Political Radar)
WSJ Law Blog published the Alaskan version of the first amendment, asking whether---if it were the law of the land, which it isn't, and if it preempted the federal constitution, which it does not---she would have an argument. I assume they're kidding.
Ah, hell with it....here's Greenwald anyway.
The First Amendment is actually not that complicated. It can be read from start to finish in about 10 seconds. It bars the Government from abridging free speech rights. It doesn't have anything to do with whether you're free to say things without being criticized, or whether you can comment on blogs without being edited, or whether people can bar you from their private planes because they don't like what you've said.
If anything, Palin has this exactly backwards, since one thing that the First Amendment does actually guarantee is a free press. Thus, when the press criticizes a political candidate and a Governor such as Palin, that is a classic example of First Amendment rights being exercised, not abridged.
This isn't only about profound ignorance regarding our basic liberties, though it is obviously that. Palin here is also giving voice to the standard right-wing grievance instinct: that it's inherently unfair when they're criticized. And now, apparently, it's even unconstitutional. (via Memeorandum)
The Toot remarks:
The Constitution is a document designed to protect the rights of powerful Republican politicians from the tyranny of a free Press. Also, we need laws to defend Republicans from political hate speech. And this is the future of the Republican party. Thanks, libertarians!
Steve Benen examines another level of the stupid:
Let's unpack this a bit.
If I understand her correctly -- and with Palin, it's sometimes tough to understand her general incoherence -- the governor believes she should make scurrilous, dishonest, and personal attacks against Democrats. She's afraid, however, that reporters might tell voters she's making scurrilous, dishonest, and personal attacks, and worse, that voters might recoil from her vicious style of campaigning.
And if that happens, politicians in the future might hesitate before launching scurrilous, dishonest, and personal attacks of their own. What a brutal "chilling effect" that would be.
So, as Palin sees it, the appropriate solution would be for her to accuse Obama of "palling around with terrorists," and for the media to simply pass that along without scrutiny. It's her job to wage vicious smear campaigns, and it's the media's job not to tell anyone she's waging vicious smear campaigns.
I actually thought Palin got a bit of a bum rap when she gave her vice-president-runs-the-senate spiel, since she was answering a question asked by a third grader and was presumably trying to pitch her response at that level. But here, with her interpretation about what constitutes a threat to her First Amendment rights, I'm afraid she's just totally clueless.
Nutroots to The New Republic: she didn't get "a bum rap" then any more than she's getting one now. She has repeatedly demonstrated that she doesn't have even a scintilla of knowledge about the US Constitution and even less interest in learning what it actually says.
Centrist blogger Justin Gardner at Donklephant:
I'm sorry folks, but the following argument is RIDICULOUS and I can't believe it's coming out of the mouth of somebody so close to the presidency much less the Governor of one of our states....
[S]he would attempt to convince base Republicans that criticism of her attacks is somehow infringing upon her 1st Amendment rights? That is is absolutely shameful.
I hope this woman disappears back to Alaska and is completely forgotten. She is such a joke.
Not to be a super-pedantic media type here, but the First Amendment is about defending the right of the press, and everyone else, to say what they want about politicians -- and emphatically not about defending government officials from having their words criticized, fairly or not.
And now a word from one of her supporters. This guy isn't running for office, so I will refrain from ridiculing him. But note that he swallows the whole wrong and stupid argument hook, line, and sinker. I mean it's sad, really.
Man. If I ever become king of the world, I'm going to proclaim that all Americans have to start learning the Constitution, the process by which laws are made, and the structure of state and federal government from, say, second grade on.
Imagine: if Kristol and his cadre get their wish, we may someday have a president who will make George W. Bush who at least knew that the Constitution consists of words, and that the words are intended to restrict government action, look like a constitutional law scholar.
If there was one thing that the McCain campaign did well, it was keeping her from talking to the press early in the campaign. Someone should have told her, "No. No. You're prettier when you don't speak."
She would have bought that.
And a matching jacket.
And this is what McCain wants to foist on the nation as a Vice President.
Memeorandum has blogger reactions here.
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Inflammatory nonsense deleted by author.
Posted by: Eric Dondero | October 31, 2008 at 09:25 PM