Memo To Dick Durbin: All Americans Are Journalists

[Geee]

Investors Business Daily:

First Amendment: Is our constitutional right to publish something going to be decided by the likes of Sen. Dick Durbin? If so, our republic and the liberty it guarantees are in trouble.

Late last month, Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, wrote a column for the Chicago Sun Times in which he conceded that "Everyone, regardless of the mode of expression, has a constitutionally protected right to free speech."

But that doesn't mean Durbin accepts that there is an absolute freedom of expression.

"When it comes to freedom of the press," he continued, "I believe we must define a journalist and the constitutional and statutory protections those journalists should receive."

And who is to define who is and isn't a journalist? Durbin and his colleagues, of course.

Congress, when controlled by Democrats, already has the mainstream media under its thumb. So it's not ABC, NBC, CBS, the New York Times and the Washington Post that Durbin is worried about. It's the bloggers, tweeters and Facebook users that he wants to control.