Update: Addendum to Free Speech Post Below

According to this CNN.com article (in which yet another columnist gets burned for being paid by the Bush administration), "Federal law bans the use of public money on propaganda."

I had no idea.

Neither, it would seem, did Senators Kennedy, Lautenberg, Durbin and Corzine [corrected; I accidentally wrote Conyers. ed.].

The difference, of course, is that I am not paid to write laws all day. I'll update this theme after I track down that law and have time for a little comparison. To be fair, it seems that politicians of whatever stripe tend to react to big stories by trying to pass a new law (e.g. the Intelligence Reform bill), with an eye more towards attracting attention than to solving a problem. Duplicative legislation can't be that effective of a problem-solver. But again, that's a bipartisan trait, and I don't know how duplicative it really is. Update forthcoming (assuming I feel like it).