What Campaign Finance Reform?

I'm not entirely sure what McCain-Feingold was supposed to accomplish, nor what it did accomplish. President Bush seems equally baffled that signing that bill into law has not kept large amounts of money from being donated to causes whose sole purpose is to influence the election. And that assessment is generous: some of the groups (MoveOn much?) clearly support one candidate over another and have even had some of their members working for current presidential campaigns.

I'm not really terribly worked up over such organizations' existing and exercising their free speech rights. But, of course, McCain-Feingold was passed, so I did expect it to have some other effect than allowing liberal 527s to flourish and run ads full of lies. "The Iraq War will cost x dollars. President Bush went in alone, so...blahblah." I don't really think John Kerry will echo Bush's call for a condemnation of these ads, since most of them favor Kerry (by rabidly hating Bush and demanding his defeat in the election; I must confess that I am shocked at the strategy not of supporting any candidate, any principle, anything at all, but merely campaigning to get someone defeated. Is this really a rousing message: "Anyone but Bush; no matter that other candidates may admittedly have worse prospects for conducting just those affairs that make us hate Bush so much - Bush has to go."?).

People buy it, of course.

I hate democracy. Anyone in ancient Greece who was not a mindless pawn of the demagogues or a demagogue hated it.

The more I think about John Kerry, the more I can't stand him. He truly is a traitor.