great minds think alike

Matt Welch echoes my thoughts on the Online Freedom of Speech Act in "Democrats—Not for Free Speech Anymore!":

I think this quote speaks volumes about some Democrats' Mel Stuart–like internal dissonance on the First Amendment. I am a friend of free speech, they assure us at every turn, but we need to draw lines, because when yucky people spend money to communicate a political message through the news media, it's just like child pornography, reckless endangerment, and intellectual property theft. Combine this attitude with a general cluelessness about the unintended speech-impairing consequences of FEC rule-making, and you get the obscene sight of the New York Times editorial board, which bathed itself and Judith Miller in the holy waters of the First Amendment in 15 different editorials, arguing with a straight face that "The bill uses freedom of speech as a fig leaf."

It's not that hard to explain left-wing opposition to free speech. Lefites believe "fairness" is categorically more important than freedom and are happy to restrict the latter in the name of the former even if it makes everyone worse off.