Robert Samuelson on McCain-Feingold-Bush:

“The presidential campaign has confirmed that, under the guise of “campaign finance reform,” Congress and the Supreme Court have repealed large parts of the First Amendment. They have simply discarded what were once considered constitutional rights of free speech and political association. It is not that these rights have vanished. But they are no longer constitutional guarantees. They’re governed by limits and qualifications imposed by Congress, the courts, state legislatures, regulatory agencies — and lawyers’ interpretations of all of the above. We have entered an era of constitutional censorship. Hardly anyone wants to admit this — the legalized demolition of the First Amendment would seem shocking — and so hardly anyone does. The evidence, though, abounds. The latest is the controversy over the anti-Kerry ads by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and parallel anti-Bush ads by Democratic “527″ groups such as MoveOn.org. Let’s assume (for argument’s sake) that everything in these ads is untrue. Still, the United States’ political tradition is that voters judge the truthfulness and relevance of campaign arguments. We haven’t wanted our political speech filtered. Now there’s another possibility. The government may screen what voters see and hear.”

Read the whole thing.