I realize that this is dangerously offtopic, but the Senate’s recent condemnation against moveon.org’s Petraeus ad is deeply unsettling for those who care about the First Amendment. George W. Bush joined in the condemnation. (During the 2004 election George W. Bush refused to condemn the Swift Boat ads, instead calling for all 501C organizations to refrain from running election ads–apparently not realizing that he had recently signed a campaign finance reform law allowing precisely these kinds of political ads).
George Lakoff defended the use of the “betrayal of trust” theme in political discourse.
It seems inevitable that the political winds will change rapidly for the 2008 election and moveon.org’s current stances will suddenly become mainstream. But do symbolic votes like this have any longterm chilling effects on political speech? Do they produce the opposite effect of calling attention to such speech? Or are they just harmless political sideshows?
Publishers on both sides have flourished in this polarizing political era. Should they now start worrying about congressional meddling? NYT and other dailies run not only political ads but book ads in its Sunday editions. When a publisher runs ads for political analysis/tirade books like Ann Coulter, Michael Moore, Jon Stewart or Al Gore, are they not implicitly promoting a book’s message?
How do you market political books (or ebooks) after such a Senate vote? Should advertisements for a political book be just an inoffensive compilation of blurbs or an attempt to convey the gist of the book’s message?
