You know it's bad when I'm the one defending the blogosphere. John Hinderaker points us to two pieces by David Paul Kuhn, of CBSNews.com. In the first piece, Kuhn elliptically hints at the need for FEC regulation of blogs, while in the second he makes a few factual errors himself. CBS News, Hinderaker points out, isn't subject to any regulation, and would scream bloody murder if someone tried to impose regulation on them.

I'm four-square with Hinderaker on (a) the foolishness of regulating blogs and (b) the hypocrisy of old media types who want to do so.

There's just one wrinkle: The example which bothers Kuhn isn't the Swift Boat Vets, but the South Dakota Senate race where bloggers Jon Lauck and Jason Van Beek were surreptitiously on the Thune payroll.

By any estimation, Lauck and Van Beek are a black-eye on the blogosphere. But what they did probably isn't illegal. Unless it is, of course. Blog law is going to evolve and the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance reform laws (restricting political speech is hard work, you know; thanks President Bush!) aren't going to make it any easier for free speech to win out.