I Do Believe He's Found A Petard That Needs A-Hoisting, Gentlemen

The unlimited deluge of electoral campaign cash unleashed by Citizens United upon the American political system had but one weakness:

Stephen Colbert.

Stephen Colbert doesn't "want to be the one chump" without any unlimited corporate money going to his political action committee. That's why he showed up the the Federal Election Commission building in D.C. to formally request an advisory opinion on behalf of "Colbert Super PAC," a proposed independent expenditure only committee able to accept unlimited corporate, individual, political committee and labor contributions.

Accepting unlimited funding is "a right as described by the Citizens United case," Colbert said in response to a question from Politico's Ken Vogel. "I believe the Citizens United decision was the right one, there should be unlimited corporate money, and I want some of it. I don't want to be the one chump who doesn't have any."

Colbert said he expected the FEC to take his request seriously.

"I'm making an actual request. I want to find out whether I actually have to list Viacom and the fact that I have a show as a gift in-kind," Colbert said. "And if I don't, I can't wait to use the resources of my show."

And yes, it took a comedian in order to expose the idiocy of the Citizens United ruling in the first place.  Because what the ruling did is give political action committees the ability to treat campaign donations and support by third party PACs like the one Colbert is intent on forming as free speech, and basically eliminating limits on it.

If the ruling applies to Karl Rove's Crossroads PAC and the people invoked with this PAC or getting donations from this PAC like Sarah Palin or Mike Huckabee or Newt Gingrich can go on FOX News and their opinions and support of candidates and positions are treated as free speech (and not necessarily the opinion of FOX News itself) then certainly it applies to Stephen Colbert's PAC, does it not?

Because that's what the Supreme Court has said.  And that's how it has worked for FOX since the ruling came down in January 2010.  President Obama is drafting an executive order toning down some of this nonsense, but Republicans and corporations are howling that Obama is a "fascist" for denying this "free speech".

Bless Stephen Colbert's little heart.  I hope he takes this all the way to November 2012.  If it takes him making a complete mockery of our political campaign finance system for America to demand something different, then so be it.