Good Morning, boys and girls. That smiling and attractive fellow is Newt Gingrich who probably would like to be President of the United States beginning in January 2009. He "hasn't made up his mind" yet, of course, but he does turn up on CSPAN's "Road to the White House" with the rest of the hopefuls and otherwise acts like a presidential candidate.

So why are we using the "F" word for Mr. Gingrich ? Easy. Because of a report from the Vermont Union Leader today in which he calls for "changes to the rules" regarding Free Speech to help fight terror. Changes are needed, he says, "before we lose a city".

Mr. Gingrich did not spell out the connection between Free Speech as protected by the Constitution and the loss of a city, nor how his unspecified changes might avoid this result. We don't care.

It could not matter less what price in freedom Mr. Gingrich thinks it appropriate for us to pay for some illusory security. Freedom of speech is not a noted feature of Russia and the restrictions did not prevent the Beslan school outrage.

Restrictions on freedom are never to protect the people and always to protect the privilege of the few.

Mr. Gingrich had some other dishonest things to say about free speech. He attacked campaign finance reform and said it did little to stem "attack ads". Actually, the ill that campaign finance reform is designed to deal with is corruption of public officials.

All right class, take a pen or a pencil or a crayon or a sharpie or whatever you have and draw a clear line through the name "Newt Gingrich" on your list of presidential candidates for 2008. And if any of your mommies or daddies are in a position to have Mr. Gingrich identified as an Al Quaeda operative, subjected to extraordinary rendition and transported to Egypt for a few months, we would all be grateful.

StayNaked
jd