democrats vs. free speech

Today, the Democratic Party helped kill the Online Freedom of Speech Act. In "Democrats defeat election-law aid for bloggers", Declan McCullagh reports:

he vote tally in the House of Representatives, 225 to 182, was not enough to send the Online Freedom of Speech Act to the Senate. Under the rules that House leaders adopted to accelerate the process, a two-thirds supermajority was required.

Why did this happen? A Democrat explains:

Rep. Marty Meehan, a Massachusetts Democrat who opposed the bill, said during the floor debate: "We don't allow child pornography on the Internet. We don't exempt it from consumer safety laws...We don't because we think those laws are important." Campaign finance regulations should be extended as well, he said.

That's right, online political speech is like child pornography!

Of course, former FEC chairman Bradley Smith said it best:

We now more heavily regulate political speech through campaign contributions and speaking and independent expenditures and so on, than we regulate pornography over the internet, than we regulate simulated child pornography, than we regulate flag burning[.]

Thanks, Democrats!