Politics Lost

by George Will - May 14th, 2006 - TownHall.com

WASHINGTON -- Half a century ago, the best columnist America has ever produced, Murray Kempton, lamented that the absence of honest passion was a shared characteristic of professional wrestling and American politics. Kempton was dismayed because in 1952 the Eisenhower campaign hired an advertising agency. What would we come to next?

What Time magazine columnist Joe Klein thinks we have come to -- politics "gangrenous with cynicism" -- is summarized in the title of his invigorating new book, Politics Lost: How American Democracy Was Trivialized by People Who Think You're Stupid.

Mr. Will is one of many people who are worried about politics in America, and this book review covers a new book that makes that point. This is an excellent article that everyone who votes should read. The courts are rapidly permitting the evisceration of "free speech" and in the process subverting democracy.

We must stop McCain-Feingold and other laws that permit government to decide who gets to speak, and criminalizes anyone who violates the new rules in a way the courts or the bureaucrats think is wrong. In the process we need to recognize how dangerous people like John McCain are when they think it is perfectly okay for bureaucrats to decide who should be allowed to participate in democracy. John McCain believes he has the right to stop free speech of those he believes fall short of his standards.

This is America?