You can now read online my essay (Volume 7, Nexus Law Journal). It is part of this symposium, How are Blogs Affecting the Legal World?
UPDATE: A reader responds below the fold.

Brett Bellmore writes:

Lesson #2: Many bloggers view their activities as more worthy of protection than tradtional political commnications, but they shouldn’t.
I didn’t notice in your essay any evidence of “exceptionalism”. Bloggers indeed think their activities merit more protection than traditional political communications are currently getting. This doesn’t have to be a demand for *special* rights. It can be consistant with a belief that traditional political communications aren’t getting nearly the protection they ought to be. A belief that the treatment professional journalists get is, by right, how EVERYBODY is entitled to be treated.
That “no law” means, damn it, NO LAW, and that there’s a real problem with political corruption, alright, and it’s that campaign regulation is a corrupt attack on the liberties we are guaranteed by the First amendment.
We were not guaranteed equity, we were not guaranteed an absence of the appearance of corruption. We were guaranteed that no law would infringe on our right to speak or publish.
Now, I think you’re a man of good will, and sincere in your concerns. But I think the whole campaign “reform” movement is misconceived, and contrary to the spirit of the 1st amendment. And I think you blow off too easily the glaring conflict of interest involved in incumbents writing laws to regulate what may be said and done by people seeking to unseat them. A conflict of interest they’re not wrestling with, but instead have embraced with passion.
Advocates of free political speech don’t see blogging as an exception worthy of special treatment. We see it as a place to make our stand, and try to beat back a war being waged against a basic civil liberty.
And if we lose blogging, the “reformers” will eventually get around to silencing the journalists, too. Maybe last, after everyone else is safely gagged, but eventually. And we think the journalists are damned fools if they don’t realize it.
Brett Bellmore