Opinion: Daily Kos cleared

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In a little-noticed ruling yesterday, the Federal Election Commission decided that blogs--even those that actively advocate the election of the most wonderful, thoughtful and outstanding candidate you can imagine from this party, or the ones that denigrate the corrupt, two-faced, Neanderthal losers from the other party--are actually media entities that are not required to meet federal campaign finance regulations.

That’s a relief for Daily Kos, the widely read website that’s an electronic bible for many liberals. It’s operated by Markos Moulitsas Zuniga. In an FEC complaint last month, a conservative blogger named John C.A. Bambenek argued that the site should comply with finance laws because it amounts to ‘a gift of free advertising and candidate media services.’

The FEC said nope. ‘While the complaint asserts that Daily Kos advocates for the election of Democrats for federal office,’ the commission ruled, ‘the commission has repeatedly stated that an entity that would otherwise qualify for the media exemption does not lose its eligibility because it features news or commentary lacking objectivity or expressly advocates in its editorial the election or defeat of a federal candidate.’

Try writing a blog in that style and your reader numbers might soar into the double digits.

The commission also threw out a complaint by Rep. Mary Bono, a California Republican, who charged that her Democratic opponent last fall collaborated with a blogger to advocate her defeat. The FEC called the blogger a volunteer.

Bono won anyway. Which shows how influential bloggers can be.

--Andrew Malcolm