What’s the deal with the current push to regulate blogs? Remember: Show us the money!

My latest column in The Post looks at who’s behind the crackdown:

If you give a mouse a cookie, he’ll ask for a glass of milk. Then, he’ll ask for a straw. Eventually, he’ll ask for your whole house.

That’s not just the plot of a popular children’s book: It’s the strategy of the campaign-finance-reform lobby — and it’s on display right now as the enemies of free speech begin a long-planned crackdown on the Internet.

Under a court order, the Federal Election Commission has drafted rules to apply the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (a.k.a. McCain-Feingold) to the Web. These would be the first restrictions of online politics — especially on Web logs, the journals known as “blogs.”

The folks behind this push claim that they just want to make sure paid political ads on the Web don’t slip through a “loophole.” Yet the “reformers” have already put us on notice that it won’t end there.

…

Any regulation of blogs opens up a large class of small-time political commentators — without access to The New York Times’ legal team — to frivolous complaints and endless harassment by way of the FEC. And you can be sure it will be the most successful bloggers, those doing the most to sway public opinion for or against candidates, who will be targeted.

You can also get a good idea of what the reformers think of free speech on the Internet by taking a look at the court papers they filed in forcing the FEC crackdown.