The left and the right are reveling in a furor of righteous indignation over the Media Matters selective editing of a statement by radio host Rush Limbaugh. The right is in an uproar because Media Matters lifted a Limbaugh statement out of context and used it to claim that Limbaugh was smearing anti-war troops as phony soldiers. The left is in an uproar, because even though they know the charge is bogus they have the chance to say that Rush was smearing the troops.

Resolutions have been put forward in Congress condemning Limbaugh's comments.

Here's the thing. I don't care what Limbaugh said. I don't care if he did say that any soldier opposing the war is a phony soldier (he didn't) because that would teach me something valuable about the character of the man and it would inform my decision about whether or not I would ever listen to his broadcast (and advertisers). I don't care if by bringing up Jesse McBeth in the context of discussing six soldiers who wrote an anti-war editorial he was attempting to smear them by association (I don't believe he was).

What I do care about is that the United States Congress should not be passing resolutions condemning speech. Any speech. I do not think Congress should have passed any resolution condemning the utterly repugnant MoveOn.org "General Betray Us" ad.

Any member of Congress who wishes to condemn either the MoveOn ad or the statement that Rush didn't make is free to do so. Being elected to Congress does not vacate their freedom of speech. They could do so with certainly a larger audience than my criticisms on this blog will ever receive. But for Congress to pass an official act condemning speech is chilling - even if it is non-binding and has no force of law.

It is no surprise that the approval ratings for Congress are at an all time low. And before the right trumpets that as an indicator of the public's perception of the left's majority, they should remember that they are also part of the problem.

Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 12:59 PM | No Comments | Add Comment