Here's why all bloggers should fear the FEC

I'm going to give you all a quote. After you read it, I'd like you to guess who said it. This may or may not be easy.
"We learned that the mainstream media, over the course of the last year, did a pretty good job of discerning. But there's a subculture and a sub-media that talks and keeps things going for entertainment purposes rather than for the flow of information. And that has a profound impact and undermines what we call the mainstream media of the country. And so the decision-making ability of the American electorate has been profoundly impacted as a consequence of that. The question is, what are we going to do about it?"
Okay, guess.

Do you know who said this?

Do you?

If your answer was John F. Kerry, you are correct. Sounds like the blatherings of a poor loser, right? Perhaps, but this poor loser is still a Senator, and as a Senator, he still has influence. If the 2004 Democratic nominee for the Presidency is asking what can be done to shut up what are essentially electronic pamphleteers (bloggers), then other Democrats are talking about it, too. And given that the Republican party is home to several "mavericks", one of whom lent his name to the campaign finance reform bill (read anti-free speech bill), there are probably Republicans talking like this, too.

There is nothing wrong with vigilance in protecting your basic rights as defined by the Bill of Rights. In fact, that vigilance may be the greatest social activism a citizen can display. The blogosphere should take a hard, firm line on this, and not give an inch. Even if it puts us at odds one day with our own political parties, left or right. Even if it puts us at odds with the law as defined by the FEC.