You Say "Corporate Personhood," I Pinch You in the Sulzberger

Just a remarkable editorial in today's New York Times about Citizens United v. FEC, the Supreme Court case on Hillary: The Movie that may chisel away some of the encroachments on political speech mandated by the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act. Here's the money quote:

The legal doctrine underlying this debate is known as "corporate personhood."

Huh. I thought the legal doctrine–the constitutional doctrine–was, whatchacallit, that talky-talk thing, Thomas Jefferson stuff, sometimes newspapers get all holier-than-thou about it…oh yeah, FREEDOM OF SPEECH.

The Times even gets in a junior high school debating point:

The drive to give corporations more rights is coming from the court's conservative bloc — a curious position given their often-proclaimed devotion to the text of the Constitution.

Face!

Unlike the New York Times, my devotion to the Constitution involves taking the "Congress shall make no law" clause seriously. That, and not letting my hatred of Corporations blind me to the fact that the term also refers to nonprofits, people who pool their money together to produce speechy products like political documentaries, and so on.

Reason on Hillary: The Movie here, and on campaign-finance laws here.