Late on Thursday, April 10, 2003, the Senate and House the Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act (formerly known as the RAVE Act) as an attachment to the Amber Alert Bill (a child abduction bill). The bill is likely to be signed into law by the President in the next few weeks. Fax Attorney General Ashcroft right now! Urge him and President Bush to make clear and careful enforcement decisions that uphold our freedom of speech, right to peacefully assemble, and our right to dance! We thank our supporters for their faxes and encouragement. We will continue to work in coalition to fix this dangerous law.

Oh well. At least go tell Ashcroft to watch how he uses it.

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Murdoch's success has been described in many ways, but for my shilling, it comes down to this: He has always had a keen insight into liberalism's greatest psychological vulnerability--that liberals, above almost any other virtue, want to be seen as fair-minded and reasonable. He exploits that condition daily, but he's never exploited it quite like he did in the summer of 1993.

An interesting article in The American Prospect on Rupert Murdoch's rise to power, culminating this week with his acquisition of DirectTV. I'm not sure I agree with their end conclusion, that liberals need to stop being so reasonable - I'd prefer to leave the unreasonable shrillness to the far edges of both sides of the political spectrum - but it does paint an interesting picture of Murdoch's shrewd manipulation of that trait.

A Political Wire reader writes to say Gary Hart spoke at Loyola University Chicago today. When answering a question about whether he knew if he would run for president, Hart said:

"No, I don't. When I do, I'll announce it. I think now we're going to wait a little. People say its getting late, all the activists are signing up for other candidates, but I'm reminded that Clinton didn't announce until September of '91 when he ran. So, it's possible to wait a while. And, second, right now Bush is very very popular, and no one wants to rain on his parade. But I'll continue to speak. I don't think we have to make a decision right now."

Oops, never mind.

[via Political Wire]