Book-Banning at the Supreme Court
THE SCRAPBOOK has not seen Hillary: The Movie, a 90-minute documentary produced during the secretary of state’s unsuccessful campaign for the presidency last year. But we have a suspicion that the content is critical of its subject. Hillary was produced by David Bossie, the veteran conservative activist, for Citizens United, of which he is president. And neither Bossie nor Citizens United would be counted among Hillary Rodham Clinton’s admirers.
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But that’s just part of the story. The Federal Election Commission has decided that Hillary: The Movie is in violation of the McCain-Feingold campaign reform law, which forbids “any broadcast, cable or satellite communications” that refer to any candidate for federal office within a certain number of weeks before an election.
This is usually interpreted to mean brief radio or television spots, produced by corporations, labor unions, or advocacy groups, that are intended to appeal to voters and mention candidates by name. But a federal court ruled that the McCain-Feingold strictures would also apply to movies such as Hillary, which Citizens United had sought to broadcast on cable television.
Last week, in arguments before the Supreme Court on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, it fell to Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart to explain why McCain-Feingold demands the banning of Hillary: The Movie. Some of the more left-leaning justices-notably Stephen Breyer and David Souter-had no trouble finding fault with Hillary-“It is not a musical comedy,” growled Justice Breyer-but then the discussion was pushed along by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wondered whether the McCain-Feingold strictures would apply to other media as well.
When asked if the federal government could prevent corporate or union funds from producing a book that mentioned a candidate within the McCain-Feingold time frame, Stewart replied that it could. There was an exception in the law for the press, he said, but he saw no reason why books could not be found in violation of the law, and be banned:
McCain-Feingold, Stewart responded, is intended to restrict the use of funds for what it calls “electioneering communications,” and that would include books.
THE SCRAPBOOK would like to think that, at that moment, a very large light bulb suddenly switched on above the heads of the nine justices, and it was revealed to each one that the outrageous restrictions on free speech in McCain-Feingold are an obvious violation of the First Amendment, cornerstone of our liberties.
We shall see. In the meantime, whatever the merits of Hillary: The Movie, if it turns out to be the instrument for striking down McCain-Feingold’s unconstitutional infringements on speech-or better yet, overturning the whole ill-conceived statute-it deserves an unprecedented Academy Award for public service.
Defamation-While We Still Can
P.J. O’Rourke emails THE SCRAPBOOK:
How many Episcopalians attend church on Sunday? Fore.
What do you get when you cross a Jehovah’s Witness with a Unitarian? Someone who goes door-to-door for no reason.
Hey, Presbyterians, if everything is predestined by God, how come the tornado blew your double-wide to God-knows-where?
What caused the Catholic priest to have a sex change? Altar girls.
Then there was the Baptist congregation that put up a sign, “CH_RCH What’s Missing?” And they spent all week trying to figure it out.
Why was the Dalai Lama reincarnated as a compulsive gambler? So he’d get Tibet.
Did you hear about the dyslexic Hindu who had 47,000 dogs?
What do you get if you call a Sikh a reckless, insane maniac? A taxi.
And what’s the difference between Jews and Muslims? A profit.
The Fall of the Times
From Mark Bowden’s profile of Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., the publisher and chairman of the New York Times, in the May Vanity Fair:
Homelessness Update
“Mrs. Obama and her staff also visited Miriam’s Kitchen, a soup kitchen, where the first lady bumped into Bill Richardson, a 46-year-old homeless man. Mr. Richardson was so stunned that he could barely stammer thank you as Mrs. Obama scooped a helping of mushroom risotto onto his plate this month” (New York Times, March 26). THE SCRAPBOOK is pleased to learn that the homeless are dining better in the Obama era. </π> <π>
Sentences We Didn’t Finish
“The Jon Stewart/Jim Cramer confrontation on The Daily Show is being widely compared to that between Edward R. Murrow and Joe McCarthy . . . ” (“Is Jon Stewart Our Edward Murrow? Maybe . . . ,” by Eric Alterman, The Nation, April 13).
Life Imitates P. J. (cont.)
Mark Hemingway calls THE SCRAPBOOK’s attention to an omission in last week’s item on the eerie, increasing resemblance of real life to P.J. O’Rourke’s satires. Here’s P.J. in our February 9 issue:
And here is a March 27 dispatch from the Associated Press:
