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Jan. 8, 2009

Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report: Arab regimes secretly rooting for Israel?

Larry Elder: Israelis and Palestinians: Who's David, Who's Goliath?

Jeff Jacoby: Yes, it's anti-Semitism

Jan. 7, 2009

Jonah Goldberg: Who are the real Nazis?

Anne Applebaum: Pointless Peace Proposals

Jan. 6, 2009

Caroline B. Glick: Iran's Gazan diversion?

Dennis Prager: Dissecting Dershowitz

Jan. 5, 2009

Mark Steyn: Gaza has its version of rocket scientists

Mona Charen: The So-called International Community

Jan. 2, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Having a holy tongue

Caroline B. Glick : Hamas' march to victory

Dec. 31, 2008

Dore Gold: Is Israel Using 'Disproportionate Force'?

Renee Enna:: Succulent 'stewp' is quick, easy fix

Dec. 30, 2008

Jonathan Mark: Israel's Response Is Disproportionate

Wesley Pruden: It's time once more to blame the Jews

Dec. 29, 2008

Rabbi Hillel Goldberg: Chanukah: 'Give me Judaism or give me death'

Michael B. Oren: A crisis and an opportunity

Dec. 26, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: When the past meets the future

Caroline B. Glick: Iran and Hamas do Christmas

Dec. 24, 2008

Rabbi Dovid Zauderer: Judaism's Santa problem

The Kosher Gourmet by Ethel G. Hofman CHANUKAH FORK-FINGER FOOD FEAST

Dec. 23, 2008

Caroline B. Glick: Repeating failure in Gaza

Dec. 22, 2008

Rabbi Boruch Leff: Too many Jews today are missing the intended purpose of one of Judaism's most beloved holidays

Barry Rubin: Liar, liar, pants on cease-fire

Dec. 19, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Final Battlefield

Caroline B. Glick: Betting on a dead horse

Dec. 18, 2008

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky: Juicy Chef's hella top, hella bottom, hallelujah in the middle

Craig Crossman : More gifts for geeks --- and those who love them

Dec. 17, 2008

Dion Nissenbaum: Israel kicks out outrageously biased UN official

Craig Crossman : Gifts for geeks --- and those who love them

Dec. 16, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: The Gift of Joy

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Uncle Shariah

Dec. 15, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Expert witnesses who put themselves first

Barry Rubin: What they say isn't what you hear

Dec. 12, 2008

Rabbi Hillel Goldberg: Can the Bible be a secular language?

Caroline B. Glick: What a PM Netanyahu faces from Washington

Dec. 11, 2008

Rabbi Leiby Burnham: Our role in the Divine's global corporation, World Inc.

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky: A retro-tasting pareve pot pie made with a light hand

Dec. 10, 2008

Rabbi Paysach J. Krohn: Groom admits he was caught "red handed"

Kara McGuire: No money for gifts? No problem

Dec. 9, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Can I make my boss treat me fairly?

Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report: Next Steps in the Indo-Pakistani Crisis

Dec. 8, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: 'Chanukah Bush' flap and graciousness

Mark Steyn: Jews get killed, but Muslims feel vulnerable

Dec. 5, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Truth --- The Key to Gratitude

Jeff Jacoby: UN's obsession is grotesque and Orwellian

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review March 27, 2007 / 8 Nissan, 5767

Why the FCC needs to keep its hands off YouTube

By Rich Lowry


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | For now, the Federal Election Commission doesn't have YouTube entirely in its officious grasp, and that's a wonderful thing. It helps make the video-sharing Web site a robustly unregulated — and thus invaluable — political marketplace.


It's no accident that the most memorable political advertisement in recent years was posted anonymously on YouTube, the famous 1984-themed anti-Hillary Clinton ad. A takeoff on an Apple Computer Super Bowl ad, the spot featured a woman in a Barack Obama T-shirt throwing a sledgehammer at a video screen filled with an ominous Hillary. The sledgehammer could just as well have been aimed at all the regulators, politicians, media pooh-bahs and professional hand-wringers who perennially worry that the political debate is too "uncontrolled" and set out to better control it.


This was the conceit of the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance-reform legislation that cracked down on "electioneering communications" by unions and other incorporated entities. They were forbidden from running broadcast ads mentioning candidates for federal office 60 days before an election, because such ads could — gasp — influence an election. The gatekeepers weren't going to allow it.


Fortunately, in a large, restless and boisterous country, people will always exploit the lacunae in any scheme meant to regulate political debate. In 2004, it was the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth who used a so-called 527 committee — exploiting a loophole in McCain-Feingold — to take money from a few wealthy donors to fund ads attacking John Kerry's Vietnam record.


The Swift Boat vets existed outside any of the established channels of political communication and, because of that, were able to bring important information to the debate. No media organizations were going to examine critically Kerry's war exploits or highlight his congressional testimony slamming his fellow vets. The Bush campaign wasn't going to do it because it would be deemed "too negative," and President Bush, not having served in Vietnam, was in no position to criticize Kerry. Enter the Swift Boat vets.


The anti-Hillary ad similarly said things no one else would say. No other candidate was going to air an ad comparing Hillary to Big Brother, but the ad captured things about Hillary that many people feel, or it wouldn't have had such resonance: that she is relentlessly calculating and anodyne, and that her front-runner campaign built on inevitability has a Nurse Ratched quality to it — you will vote for me, and you will enjoy it.


Other anonymously posted clips on YouTube in recent months have provided indispensable negative information about the candidates. There's the pro-life convert Mitt Romney, for instance, slickly defending his pro-choice position on abortion a few years ago. Surely, the Romney camp would prefer that clip were long forgotten, while no rival campaign would ever want to own up to posting it. The very anonymity of the process makes it possible.


The 1984 ad has prompted a bout of worry from the media and political professionals. Campaigns, we are told, are running out of anyone's control, as if this is a bad thing. Since when do we want our politics "controlled" by anyone? Anyone, anywhere, the worriers say, can post negative material about candidates. So what? Positive ads are often as misleading as negative ones. This is a point implicitly made by someone who posted on YouTube a Rudy Giuliani ad from his 1993 mayoral campaign that depicted him, in sickeningly gauzy terms, as an utterly devoted family man. How's that for dishonest advertising?


Yes, there is plenty of vile and false material on the Internet. And things aren't always what they seem — the anti-Hillary spot was created by a professional employed by a firm that was on contract with Obama. But the public can be trusted to separate the wheat from the chaff, which is its proper role in an open society. The hand-wringers look at the 1984 ad and see an awful trend, potentially dragging down our politics. Instead, they should see freedom. Get over it.

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