Here’s my latest N.Y. Post column, on yet another outrageous abuse of campaign-finance law to harass the press. This time, it’s being perpetrated by Sen. Rick Santorum:

Republican Sen. Rick Santorum grows more embarrassing to his party and to his home state of Pennsylvania every day.

No, he’s not out comparing homosexuality to pedophilia and bestiality again; nor is he writing another book blaming America’s social ills on “radical feminists.”

This time, he’s waging a campaign of harassment and intimidation against a local newspaper that he and his handlers apparently see as a threat. Their weapon of choice: campaign-finance law — specifically, McCain-Feingold.

…

“It escapes me to what benefit they think this is to them,” Lawrence K. Beaupre, the Times-Tribune’s managing editor, told me. “It’s a joke . . . We’re certainly not intimidated.”

Nor should they be. That’s why we have a First Amendment, so that the press can do its job without getting politicians like Santorum all over them.

Well, at least that’s why we used to have a First Amendment. Unfortunately, that protection — at least as it relates to political speech — was all but repealed when President Bush signed McCain-Feingold into law and the Supreme Court upheld it.

Now, all kinds of media outlets are subject to constant harassment over whether their news coverage, opinion pieces and, in this case, advertisements cross a line where they can be considered “contributions” to political campaigns.

So far, response to this column has come from Republicans saying, “Well, thank God for McCain-Feingold.” So long as the campaign-finance laws can be used as a weapon against Democrats it seems, they’re alright with the Republican base.

It’s not surprising, I suppose, but it is sickening.