President Obama, in his weekly address over the weekend, tried to get Congress to help him restrict what the Supreme Court has ruled are the Constitutional speech rights of his opponents: "We have taken a stand against the worst abuses of the financial industry and health insurance companies. We've rolled back tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. ...any time you see an attack ad by one of these shadowy groups, you should ask yourself, who is paying for this ad? Is it the health insurance lobby? The oil industry? The credit card companies?"
Don't the health insurers, oil companies, and credit card issuers have a right to respond publicly to a president who vilifies them? It's one thing to have a president who criticizes vast sectors of the American economy that employ plenty of honest, hardworking Americans. It's another thing for the president to want to change the laws to make it harder for these companies to defend themselves against his attacks.
Mr. Obama complained, "We don't know who's behind these ads or who's paying for them." At least with Obama's speech, you know exactly who is paying for it — the tax dollars extracted by government force from, among others, the very health insurance companies, oil companies, and credit card companies that he is attacking.
Update: The Washington Examiner's Mark Hemingway astutely notices that President Obama's campaigning against the influence of special interests in elections mysteriously omits labor unions.
