Wrong on both counts. First, Al Gore was not the first to bring it up. It was a big political issue in Massachusetts after a newspaper ran a series of stories on the issue. Second, the Bush ads did not mention the race of Willie Horton or show a picture of him. The single ad that did was done by a separate organization. As soon as it ran, the Bush people asked that it be pulled, as it was. That ad got far more coverage from news organizations trying, successfully, to smear Bush than it had when it ran. By the way, the reason Willie Horton was in prison was that he had brutally attacked a black teen ager.
As for Bill Clinton, he has, in fact, had put people put in jail for peaceful protests. Overnight, granted, but this has happened. Once in Chicago and once in California, as I recall. He has, according to liberal columnist Anthony Lewis, of New York Times, one of the worst records on civil liberties of any president. He has set a record for wiretaps, for instance. And, he has interfered with news organizations in ways that would outrage them were he a Republican.
And, in Arkansas, he had a very poor environmental record. Many suspect that Hillary's cattle futures winnings were one of the reasons the state of Arkansas allowed Tyson foods to pollute a river, which caused serious sickness in town on the river. There are times when he has, as president, sacrificed the goals of environmental groups to business, as any environmental advocacy group can tell you.
There are several things that need to be said here.
First, Bush is absolutely right that there are limits on freedom of speech. For example, Bush could not put up a parody site accusing the programmer who created his site of being a drug user, without being sued, unless, of course, the programmer is a drug user and Bush could prove it. There are still protections against slander and libel for the individual. These protections were weakened by the Supreme Court in a weird decision if the person being slandered is a public figure. In those cases, you have to prove not just that what was said was false, but that it was done with malice, as I recall.
Second, the FEC does put other limits on freedom of speech, limits that the Supreme Court has upheld. (In my view they were wrong, but I'm not even, thank God, a lawyer, much less a Justice.) Explicit campaign sites do in fact have some reporting requirements.
Third, the Bush people do in fact have the protection of copyright laws. That something is easy to steal, like a picture on the Net, does not mean it is legal to steal it.
Fourth, it is unclear that the Bush people are actually trying to shut thte site down. Instead they have asked the programmer not to steal their pictures, to post a disclaimer, and to follow the current law on campaign finance. In short, they have asked him to get legal. The programmer, instead of following the law, has decided to claim he is being oppressed by some one who hates freedom of speech. This is bogus. It is sucker bait for the Internet Bubbas.
If this is hard to see, turn the situation around. Suppose the Bush site was posting slander about the programmer, was not reporting to the FEC, and was stealing the programmer's work. If the programmer tried to stop this, would he be trying to suppress freedom of speech? Of course not, and neither is the Bush campaign.
Finally, the facts on that unrelated issue, Willie Horton, which are so often mistated. The first big coverage of the Horton issue came from a small newspaper in Massachusetts. As I recall, the newspaper won a Pulitzer prize for saying the same things that opponents of Dukakis later picked up. The paper's stories were picked by the Reader's Digest, so it became something of an issue outside Massachusetts as well. One important point: Dukakis never apologized to Horton's victims in Maryland.
There was a big fight over the parole policies of the Dukakis administration in Massachusetts and he was forced to change some of them. After that, it first became an issue in national politics when then Senator Gore used it against Dukakis in the New York primary. Gore used it at the suggestion of Mario Cuomo, according to one story. The Bush campaign then picked up the story and used in in a campaign ad that did not show Horton's race. An independent group then ran an ad that did show his race. The Bush people immediately asked the group not to show the ad and they did stop.
In sum, we had a real issue, first reported by a Massachusetts newspaper, which became an issue in nation politics in a Democratic primary. This has since been used to tag former president Bush with racism. This is bizarre.
Slashdot Mirror
Wrong on both counts. First, Al Gore was not the first to bring it up. It was a big political issue in Massachusetts after a newspaper ran a series of stories on the issue. Second, the Bush ads did not mention the race of Willie Horton or show a picture of him. The single ad that did was done by a separate organization. As soon as it ran, the Bush people asked that it be pulled, as it was. That ad got far more coverage from news organizations trying, successfully, to smear Bush than it had when it ran. By the way, the reason Willie Horton was in prison was that he had brutally attacked a black teen ager.
As for Bill Clinton, he has, in fact, had put people put in jail for peaceful protests. Overnight, granted, but this has happened. Once in Chicago and once in California, as I recall. He has, according to liberal columnist Anthony Lewis, of New York Times, one of the worst records on civil liberties of any president. He has set a record for wiretaps, for instance. And, he has interfered with news organizations in ways that would outrage them were he a Republican.
And, in Arkansas, he had a very poor environmental record. Many suspect that Hillary's cattle futures winnings were one of the reasons the state of Arkansas allowed Tyson foods to pollute a river, which caused serious sickness in town on the river. There are times when he has, as president, sacrificed the goals of environmental groups to business, as any environmental advocacy group can tell you.
There are several things that need to be said here.
First, Bush is absolutely right that there are limits on freedom of speech. For example, Bush could not put up a parody site accusing the programmer who created his site of being a drug user, without being sued, unless, of course, the programmer is a drug user and Bush could prove it. There are still protections against slander and libel for the individual. These protections were weakened by the Supreme Court in a weird decision if the person being slandered is a public figure. In those cases, you have to prove not just that what was said was false, but that it was done with malice, as I recall.
Second, the FEC does put other limits on freedom of speech, limits that the Supreme Court has upheld. (In my view they were wrong, but I'm not even, thank God, a lawyer, much less a Justice.) Explicit campaign sites do in fact have some reporting requirements.
Third, the Bush people do in fact have the protection of copyright laws. That something is easy to steal, like a picture on the Net, does not mean it is legal to steal it.
Fourth, it is unclear that the Bush people are actually trying to shut thte site down. Instead they have asked the programmer not to steal their pictures, to post a disclaimer, and to follow the current law on campaign finance. In short, they have asked him to get legal. The programmer, instead of following the law, has decided to claim he is being oppressed by some one who hates freedom of speech. This is bogus. It is sucker bait for the Internet Bubbas.
If this is hard to see, turn the situation around. Suppose the Bush site was posting slander about the programmer, was not reporting to the FEC, and was stealing the programmer's work. If the programmer tried to stop this, would he be trying to suppress freedom of speech? Of course not, and neither is the Bush campaign.
Finally, the facts on that unrelated issue, Willie Horton, which are so often mistated. The first big coverage of the Horton issue came from a small newspaper in Massachusetts. As I recall, the newspaper won a Pulitzer prize for saying the same things that opponents of Dukakis later picked up. The paper's stories were picked by the Reader's Digest, so it became something of an issue outside Massachusetts as well. One important point: Dukakis never apologized to Horton's victims in Maryland.
There was a big fight over the parole policies of the Dukakis administration in Massachusetts and he was forced to change some of them. After that, it first became an issue in national politics when then Senator Gore used it against Dukakis in the New York primary. Gore used it at the suggestion of Mario Cuomo, according to one story. The Bush campaign then picked up the story and used in in a campaign ad that did not show Horton's race. An independent group then ran an ad that did show his race. The Bush people immediately asked the group not to show the ad and they did stop.
In sum, we had a real issue, first reported by a Massachusetts newspaper, which became an issue in nation politics in a Democratic primary. This has since been used to tag former president Bush with racism. This is bizarre.