An Honest Liberal on Citizen's United

Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have stated they will only appoint Supreme Court Justices who will overturn Citizens United, a promise that would go against judicial ethics.  Noted liberal Michael Kinsley points out why they are wrong on the substance:

The First Amendment right of free speech is generally considered to be a liberal cause. So it's disappointing to see how quickly liberals abandon it when the speech is something they disagree with. Money isn't speech? Ridiculous. Of course it is.

As Kinsley further explains:

Liberals hope that someday the Lousy Decision Hall of Fame will include Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010), which held that corporations (and unions) have the right to free speech under the First Amendment. . . . For liberals, Citizens United has come to represent the nefarious role of money in politics, which many feel has eroded if not destroyed our democracy. Money is blamed above all this year for Donald Trump, although Citizens United doesn't apply to him if, as is widely supposed, he is a human being and not a legal fiction.

Kinsley cattiness aside, the success of Trump and for that matter Sanders proves that Citizens United is not the bogey man the left makes it out to be.  One of the reasons Kinsley cites:

The analogy I like (as did the Supreme Court in its ruling) is to a newspaper. Suppose Citizens United were reversed and President Trump decided one day that he was sick of The New York Times. So he proposes a law setting a ceiling on the amount any individual or organization can spend putting out a newspaper. Constitutional? I hope not. But it's hard to see the difference in principle between this and a law limiting the amount a corporation or union may spend promoting a political candidate.

Part of the left’s opposition is based on scoring political points.  Part it is just wrong.  Kinsley has it right.