Whose democracy is it?
by T. Colin Dodd
M$NBC riled and then unified political bloggers of every stripe last week when it issued draconian restrictions on web use of this election cycle’s first Republican presidential debate. After Buzzmachine raised heck, everyone from Instapundit to Kargo X on Daily Kos was in agreement: The debate (and the political process) belonged to the people. It was just common sense. Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig led the charge. Petitions (One to the RNC, another to the DNC) were circulated and signed, candidates were pressured to take a stand (Edwards and Obama did), and within a week CNN had agreed to allow free use of their debate on the internet. For the moment, MSNBC’s untennable policy remains unchanged, and Fox has yet to announce what it will do. Stay tuned.
