Mitch McConnell Is a Dolt (Expensive Free Speech Edition)

So let’s be clear — this particular article came up in Newsmax, which is one of the zanier right-wing “news” sites out there.  It’s sort of like WorldNetDaily, only less pervasively religious.

So here’s the headline:  McConnell to Newsmax: Obama Poses Greatest Threat to Free Speech in ‘Modern Times’

Wow! Sounds … dire.  Let’s have a chat, then, with Senator Mitch McConnell, the senior senator from Kentucky and Senate Minority Leader for the GOP.

*     *     *

Dear Mitch (can I call you Mitch?):

Sounds like you’re worried about something. Some great, existential threat to our nation. Some vast, horrifying conspiracy that threatens the very foundations of our way of life, our liberties, our deep-seated national beliefs.

What could it be?

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell charged in an exclusive interview with Newsmax Thursday that President Obama poses the greatest threat to the First Amendment in “modern times” …

Yikes!  Whatever could you mean?  Are you privy to some secret administration plan?  Are you concerned about the growing national security state, warrantless wiretaps, NSA scanning email, or drones watching our every move?  Tell us more!

… and branded his administration “astonishingly left wing.”

Mitch, the only astonishing thing is that someone could consider Obama’s centrist-to-a-fault stance on most issues “left wing.”  The real “left wing” sure isn’t very happy with him.

McConnell also accused President Obama’s re-election campaign of engaging in tactics eerily “reminiscent” of the Nixon administration’s so-called “enemies list” during the 1970s.

Wow. That’s two associations between Obama and Nixon in as many days.  You with this, and Rush Limbaugh calling Obama’s new immigration policy “worse than anything Nixon did in Watergate.”  Is that the new GOP campaign meme:  Obama = Nixon?  That’s … very odd, Mitch.

McConnell was flabbergasted …

Really, Mitch?  Flabbergasted?

… by remarks made by David Axelrod, the president’s senior campaign adviser, who told an audience in New York on Wednesday that Obama would “use whatever tools out there, including a constitutional amendment” to turn back the Supreme Court ruling that opened the way for super PACs to play a prominent role in elections.

Gosh, I’m not quite sure what’s “flabbergasting” about that, Mitch. I mean, people have been talking about ways to reverse Citizens United since the ruling came down, up to and including any number of Quixotic constitutional amendment proposals to state that corporations aren’t people (no matter what, my friend, Mitt Romney says).

Certainly it isn’t that a president is talking about a constitutional amendment to deal with a SCOTUS ruling he doesn’t care for that has you so “flabbergasted,” Mitch.  I mean, how many GOP presidents have given lip service to a constitutional amendment to overturn Roe v. Wade?  Or to outlaw flag burning?  Or any number of other outrageous things the Supreme Court has ruled over the years?

What in particular about this flabbergasts you, Mitch?

“This has never been done before — in 235 years — to make it possible for the government to control political speech in this country — a truly radical, astonishing thing to say out loud even if you believed it,” said the top Republican in the Senate, who participated in a legal challenge that helped make super PACs possible.

We’ll leave aside the Alien & Sedition Acts, Mitch.  Oh, and other actions in which the government  has restricted political speech (from imprisoning labor and war protesters, especially during time of war, to preventing protesters from getting near official events).  We’ll leave those aside, because I think we’re getting at the heart of your flabbergastment — the idea that opposing the Citizens United ruling means you want to have the government “control political speech in this country.”

“America was built on free speech — the most important part of the Bill of Rights — …

More important than Freedom of Religion, Mitch?  More important than the Right to Bear Arms?  More important than the Tenth Amendment?  Careful — I suspect some of your followers would disagree.

… and so we need to defend speech we don’t like. And we certainly want to fight against those who are trying to shut us up,” McConnell insisted.

Wait … what?  Who’s being “shut up” because we “don’t like” certain speech?

“America has many problems, but too much speech is not one of them — too vigorous speech is not one of them. And we don’t need the government — which is trying to control almost every aspect of our lives now — also telling us what we can and cannot say.”

What does a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and allow restrictions on now-unlimited campaign spending have to do with “telling us what we can and cannot say?”  Is “too vigorous speech” a code for “too expensive speech”?

The longest serving U.S. senator in Kentucky’s history has been dubbed the “Darth Vader of campaign finance reform” for his sometimes unpopular stand on campaign finance. It’s an image that he relishes …

Yes, of course, Mitch.  Darth Vader is just the image you want to associate with the Senate GOP leadership. Well played!

Especially since Darth was such a big believer in free speech — except when someone’s lack of faith disturbed him. But, heck, you can’t trust folks who lack faith!

… based on a belief that all voices need to be heard in the political arena.

I was not aware that before Citizens United there were voices that were not being heard in the political arena.  There were voices not being heard as loudly as they could turn up the volume to corporately speak, but that’s a very, very different thing. Isn’t it, Mitch?

McConnell is expected to reiterate his stand in a planned speech on Friday at the American Enterprise Institute.

Of course. Because the AEI is all about the “little guy” having a powerful voice  heard in the political arena.

He accused the Obama administration of using government agencies like the Federal Election Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Internal Revenue Service to “embarrass” and “silence” its critics.

“In other words, they’re using the power of the government to try to shut people up. It’s reminiscent of the Nixon administration,” said McConnell,…

Wow. Those are pretty harsh accusations, Mitch.  Any specifics you care to associate with them?  Anything you can actually point to the FEC, the FCC, the SEC, and/or the IRS doing to “embarass” and “silence”  its critics?  Sure you don’t want to throw in the National Weather Service, the Marine Corps Band, and Smokey the Bear while you’re at it?

… who couldn’t recall any other administration that had floated the idea of a constitutional amendment as in the case of Axelrod.

“Certainly in modern times,” he asserted. “I can’t recall anybody before just coming right out and saying we need to amend the First Amendment. Now they may have wanted to get around it in some way, but these people are just saying forthrightly ‘we’re going to change the Constitution.’ The most important amendment to the Constitution is the First Amendment. And free speech is right at the beginning.”

In modern times I can’t recall any court coming out and saying that corporations were so worthy and person-like as to enjoy full and unfettered free speech protection, up to and including spending however many gazillions they choose to spend on elections.

What next?  Will corporations be allowed to practice their own religion?  Will they be able to keep and bear arms?  When do corporations get to vote, and how many votes will they get (to cast, as opposed to buy)?

I am a profoundly deep believer in the First Amendment of the Constitution.  I would be very leery of anything that directly affected its words.  But I’m a believer in voting rights, too, and I don’t think that the amendments that “changed” those rights — giving women the franchise, for example — were some sort horrible weakening or perversion of the Constitution.

Despite widespread criticism of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision — based largely on a presumption that Americans do not forfeit their First Amendment rights when they come together in corporate entities or labor unions to speak collectively —

I don’t recall anyone ever saying that the CEO of ExxonMobil was not allowed to speak his mind under the First Amendment.  I don’t recall any evil governmental conspiracy to gag the board members of J. P. Morgan.  They all were allowed to speak, to op-ed … and to vote their conscience.

That doesn’t mean that ExxonMobil or J. P. Morgan (or the Teamsters or the AFL-CIO) should have the same right to “speak” (spend money) that their constituent individuals have, any more than they are allowed to (actually) vote.

… McConnell insisted that he is “absolutely” pleased with the role that super PACs are playing in the 2012 presidential contest.

Given that the biggest corporate and billionaire-funded SuperPACs support the GOP, that’s hardly surprising.

“I think it is really, really important now that it’s possible for all points of view in the marketplace of ideas to be expressed,” said McConnell, …

Which points of view were not being expressed in the marketplace of ideas before Citizens United, Mitch?

And when a gaggle of corporations are able to buy up all the aisles in the market, how free is the marketplace then?

… who was first elected to the Senate in 1984.

That seems vaguely fitting, as considering a corporate voice to be the same as an individual one, and defending that in the name of liberty, is more than vaguely Orwellian.

“The left for many years has tried to sort of micromanage speech — say that ‘you get to speak because you’re on my side. But you don’t get to speak because you’re against what I’m doing.’”

Really?  Really, Mitch?  Point out to me where the “left” tried to restrict people who were not on “their side” from being able to speak. Really, Mitch — I want to know.

(Need I point out that one of the architects of the campaign spending limitations that Citizens United overturned, Mitch, was one of your colleagues, Sen. John McCain — someone whom even you, Mitch, would have problems describing as “the left.”)

The senator said he is “proud of the decision in Citizens United” and added that “I hope I played a role by filing an Amicus brief in that case.”

The only thing more appalling than the decision, Mitch, is the idea that any of the Justices were actually swayed by your arguments.

A senior member of the Appropriations, Agriculture and Rules Committees of the upper chamber, McConnell also hoped that Senate Democrats would not succeed in passing a so-called Disclose Act, which would require corporations, unions and nonprofit groups to disclose their top donors if they participate in political activity, and to agree to other disclosures related to expenditures prior to elections.

He said such a law would be another way of undermining the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United.

“What the left is saying — okay the Supreme Court won’t allow us to prevent them from speaking, but why don’t we try to make sure everybody knows who’s contributing to those groups — and then we’ll harass them, and intimidate them, and try to quiet them, shut them up, sort of like a Nixonian enemies’ list. And some of it has already happened.”

See, funny thing, Mitch — when the Supreme Court majority in Citizens United were explaining their reasoning, they dismissed concerns that the gargantuan flood of corporate money into the election process would lead to corruption and damage to our democratic institutions.  Why?  Because Congress would be able to mandate transparency in donations, so that if ExxonMobil spend a million dollars getting someone elected, for example, at least people would know it and be able to act (and vote) as they then saw fit.

Clearly the Supreme Court was cleverly conspiring to undermine its own decision, eh, Mitch?

McConnell accused President Obama of helping to “go after an individual who contributed to one of the groups supporting Gov. Romney.”

Similar efforts are being waged through various government agencies, he said.

“So their idea here is ‘well if we can’t shut them up, then let’s embarrass them off the playing field. Let’s intimidate them. Let’s scare them. Let’s bring the force of government down on them and intimidate them so that they’re afraid to take us on.’ This is not appropriate behavior in America. And this needs to be stood up to.”

Really, Mitch?  Because if there is official government harassment of opponents to the administration, I’d like to hear about it and have the opportunity to condemn it.  Of course, it’s hard to believe the only way Goldman-Sachs can avoid being intimidated by the government is by secret donations, isn’t it, Mitch?

I’m going to leave off the rest of your screedy interview with NewsMax, Mitch, because while it’s equally doltish (even though job growth has been pretty steadily increasing in the private sector, you think the private sector is losing jobs; even though public sector jobs have plummeted because of local and state governments starving for funds, you think public sector employment is doing fine), it misses the point.

Opposing Citizens United is not opposing personal liberty and free speech. It’s opposing the idea that those who can afford the biggest microphones — especially major corporations showing record profits — are either deserving of the same free speech rights as actual flesh-and-blood citizens, or should be allowed to leverage their vast wealth in an “equal” way with the average citizen-on-the-street.

Proposing a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United and corporate personhood may or may not be a good idea, but it’s not an attack on your right, Mitch, or mine, to speak our minds in public.

And calling efforts to deal with the Citizens United decision a Nixonian dirty trick that constitutes the worst attack on the First Amendment in modern times is, at best, simply simply confusion, and at worst, deceitful demagoguery toward the American people.  The real people, Mitch.