Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin was interviewed on radio station WMAL-AM in Washington this morning. Among other things, she stated

“If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations, then I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.”

Exactly backward, Ms. Palin. The Constitution’s first amendment explicitly guarantees a right to a free press; the amendment says zilch about the rights of campaigning public figures. If you start censoring what a television reporter or newspaper editor can and cannot say about a open, freely-run election campaign, you might get…

…why…

The Alien and Seditions Acts, passed by President John Adams in 1798. The acts (four separate bills) were designed to still what was considered “undue and harsh criticism” of Adams’ administration. Twenty-five people, primarily prominent newspaper editors such as Benjamin Franklin’s grandson Benjamin Franklin Bache, were arrested.

…or you might get…

the suspension of habeus corpus by the Lincoln administration. This was done presumably to stifle efforts to force Maryland to secede from the United States (leaving Washington DC solidly within the territory ofthe Confederate States of America). However, the most urgent reason to invoke the suspension was to stifle criticism of the War Between the States coming from “Copperheads”, or Union dissenters who were protesting the war. Most “Copperheads” were newspaper editors and pamphleteers.

…or you might get…

The Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918, both passed the Wilson Administration, to austensibly prevent fifth columnists from sabotaging the war effort. Virtually all of the Americans prosecuted and convicted were newspaper editors and pamphlet writers. Some sentences exceeded 10 years.

…or you might get…

The Patriot Act, passed by President George W. Bush in 2001. (Do you really need to see his face again?) This law has been used, along with the current suspension of habeas corpus, to imprison people without access to counsel and without declaration of formal charges. Many newspaper editors now fear that undue criticism of the current administration will bring down the power of this Act upon them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now we have a candidate who, if elected, is one heart attack or cancer relapse away from the Presidency, and who is now invoking First Amendment privileges against any sort of media protest against her candidacy.

*sigh*

See an earlier post on my thoughts on that subject.