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Brown-noser for President
: Howard Dean posts on Larry Lessig’s blog and sucks up to the professor:
The Internet might soon be the last place where open dialogue occurs. One of the most dangerous things that has happened in the past few years is the deregulation of media ownership rules that began in 1996.
Wait a minute. “In the past few years” we had a massive terrorist attack on this country, we have gone to war twice, and there are tons of WMD unaccounted for in an Iraq that was crawling with terrorists, and media ownership deregulation is “one of the most dangerous things” to happen?
What a tool.
(rolling eyes big time) Now, I’m a registered Democrat, but I’ll be voting for him when the moon turns blue. That goes for the other Democrat candidates too. They’re just too much to the left for my taste. Who are the Democrats kidding – I haven’t seen them come up with workable solutions to the terrorism and national security. By workable, I mean, truly lasting, long-term solutions that don’t involve throwing money after solutions that will work just as well as snowballs staying frozen in hell. That means confronting root causes, such as the source of Saudi funding groups like al Qaeda and getting these dictators to address their own country’s problems instead of diverting their attention by using imams to get the people stirred up about the decadency of the American society (and while smuggling in risque videos for private viewing and such).
No, I’m not going to be voting for George Bush. I’ve always voted in every election (especially since my ancestors were denied the right to vote till the Civil Rights movements). But the candidates just turn me off, this year. I might not vote (but since there are local issues, I guess I’ll have to vote) but will probably write in someone else. Who, I don’t know yet.
Normally, I’m not a fan of Fisking, but I couldn’t resist. If you’d like to take a look, I’ve got it posted over at Begging to Differ:
http://www.beggingtodiffer.com/archives/2003_07.html#000241
In the arena of free speech, the singular most dangerous thing that’s happened is McCain-Feingold. Political speech should be the most protected, but instead it’s the most highly regulated. Death to the FEC!
I didn’t much care for Dean’s ideas on media regulation either. But what I really find irritating is the pretense that Dean is “blogging.” Dean’s post was not topical, not personal, and did not contain any links. It was probably typed in by one his campaign’s piss-boys, who also show up as stagehands in Lessig’s blog. Dean is not responding to comments (assuming he even reads them), and his level of engagement is insultingly minimal:
“Let me be perfectly honest. In the space of this week on the blog, I will not be able to answer every specific question. I know that people here care deeply about intellectual property. I
I’d be a bit concerned if a candidate for President was spending most of his time writing links and answering inane comments left by hundreds of other bloggers. At least he’s making an effort to connect with a group of people who are forever concerned about being neglected by “big media”.
That being said, I’m not sure what Dean expects to get out of this guest-blogging. People scream and moan about not being able to have a forum that allows them to voice their views to political leaders. Yet when Dean makes an attempt to recognize this he’s called out for being phoney and self-serving. It’s pretty much damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t.
I’m liberal as well and won’t vote for Dean. If Dean actually did make it to the White House, it would probably take a week for him to discover just how wrong he is when it comes to foreign policy.