Michelle Malkin has a great post on one of the Left’s premier water carrier’s, Stephen Colbert, on one of their signature hypocrisies–corporate campaign finance reform.
Colbert set out to create a PAC so he could accumulate gobs of cash to prove a point about the abuses of campaign finance reform, only to discover just how hard it is to do that. From the Wall Street Journal, quoting Colbert…
"Why does it get so complicated to do this? I mean, this is page after page of legalese," Mr. Colbert lamented. "All I’m trying to do is affect the 2012 election. It’s not like I’m trying to install iTunes."
Well, that’s pretty much what the nonprofit group Citizens United said to the Supreme Court in the case that Mr. Colbert is trying so hard to lampoon.
Campaign-finance laws are so complicated that few can navigate them successfully and speak during elections—which is what the First Amendment is supposed to protect. As the Supreme Court noted in Citizens United, federal laws have created "71 distinct entities" that "are subject to different rules for 33 different types of political speech." The FEC has adopted 568 pages of regulations and thousands of pages of explanations and opinions on what the laws mean. "Legalese" doesn’t begin to describe this mess.
Emphasis mine. What Stephen also does not realize, perhaps, is that state rules make it even harder in some cases, for regular people to be politically active on their own without running afoul of speech limiting regulations. And most of us do not have Mr. Colbert’s resources.
He has had to hire powerful lawyers to wade into the regulations in search of a way to get a waiver or exemption. But that’s not happening. WSJ again…
How’s that for a punch line? Rich and successful television personality needs powerful corporate lawyers to convince the FEC to allow him to continue making fun of the Supreme Court. Hilarious.
This is Democrat party talking points meet reality. One wonders if he will next take on the hypocrisy of foreign contributors and even challenge Mr. Obama’s appearance on impropriety on the matter? I’m guessing not. Colbert thought he had an easy gag he could milk for 18 months, heading into the 2012 election. He’s probably not in this to be an investigative reporter. though I’d applaud any honest look at either issue on his part.
So welcome to the real world where democrats really do exaggerate (lie) to impede political speech they object to and things are never what the party hacks make them out to be.
