Hell Hath Frozen Over -- I Praise A Left-Wing Writer

It's not often I agree with Glenn Greenwald, but I admire his consistency on the First Amendment (and to be fair, he's also been pretty willing to call out President Obama on his unwillingness to live up to campaign promises). He's a well left-of-center liberal who thinks corporations have too great an influence on politics, but his column on the Citizens United decision is spot-on. I don't agree with his belief that public financing of campaigns would be a good idea (if anything, I think it would exacerbate the incumbent protection features of our current system), but it's good to see that the someone on the left understands that fiddling with the First Amendment is a very bad idea.

At the end of the day, it's worth remembering that President Bush signed McCain-Feingold into law, and Obama is outraged by the Supreme Court's decision to gut the bill. So the leaders of both parties signed onto and defended this attempt to limit free speech. Conservatives and liberals should be appropriately suspicious.