DON SURBER: Is the Village Voice Trolling Me? Well, that’s pretty much Roy’s job description. . . .
UPDATE: RELATED: ERIC BOEHLERT DOESN’T JUST PLAY DUMB. In criticizing my Wall Street Journal piece he quotes a bit on White house criticism of Fox News, but leaves out this part:
Bert Gall and Robert Frommer of the Institute for Justice have made a compelling case that the Obama administration’s word choice is quite significant. They think that by branding Fox as something other than a “legitimate news organization,” the White House is actually setting up a more brutal attack using campaign finance laws. News media organizations are exempt from campaign-finance laws’ speech regulations. But if Fox is not a “legitimate news organization,” then federal election authorities might be able to argue that its political speech can be regulated like that of any other non-news corporation.
The implications would be far-reaching. Messrs. Gall and Frommer write on PajamasMedia.com: “Of course, if the media’s speech becomes illegitimate—and thus subject to restriction—when it turns critical, then the same is true for everyone else, including ordinary citizens.” Imagine if the administration applied disclosure laws not just to Fox, but to groups like the tea-party protestors. Faced with this restrictive bureaucracy, such groups would probably be paralyzed.
Contrary to Boehlert’s misleading suggestion that this is just what we saw under the Bush Administration, it’s not. And, in fact, although the Bush Administration didn’t get along with the press, it didn’t evince the Obama Administration’s thin-skinned thuggishness, which of course has also applied to scientists and university administrators. Whatever Soros pays these guys, it’s more than they’re worth. But to be fair to Boehlert, he was shrill even before he signed on as a flack for Media Matters, and even when I agreed with him. I just hope his attack produced more than Media Matters’ trademark 14 hits. Oh, well, I’m sure I’m sending him a lot more traffic than that, so he can count his own trolling efforts a success . . . .