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Mr. Karem, you have not been abridged. And — despite that your every word is eye-roll inducing — I’m glad. It means the First amendment is alive and well. I saw a clip of you on TV this morning criticizing the administration to its face. I saw you on New Day recounting how you criticized the administration to its face. I read your opinion piece on Playboy.com (there was a “pose for Playboy” link at the top of the page, but I swear I didn’t click it). I know every detail of how terribly you think they treated you.

You haven’t been jailed, fined, or otherwise punished by the government. Your First amendment rights have in no way been violated. You haven’t been “abridged,” you’ve been lengthened, elongated, extended. You’re this month’s mainstream media centerfold. You’re Mr. June because you waxed emotional and ranted at a press briefing.

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Karem’s opinion piece climaxes with the obligatory end-of-Democracy hysteria that has been a staple of apocalyptic, yellow journalism since President’s Trump’s election: “The foundation of a free republic is a free press. You take the good with the bad and you move on. As I’ve said before, in quoting Larry Speakes: We won’t tell you how to stage the news, so don’t tell us how to report it.”

Karem and the rest of the anti-Trump press can’t wrap their heads around how the First amendment isn’t a magical force field that provides them with total power over all information dissemination and total immunity from any responsibility. These days, “free press” suddenly comes at the expense of everyone else’s free speech. Don’t correct, don’t criticize, don’t have your own opinion. If anyone points out the flaws of CNN, The Washington Post, or The New York Times, democracy is over.

Thanks to a law abridging the freedom of the press, Congressman Matthew Lyon was tossed in jail for writing and publishing editorials that were critical of John Adams’ administration; that’s free-press martyrdom. Karem got 15 minutes of fame on TV and lots of clicks on his Playboy rant; that’s just free press.

Eddie Zipperer is an assistant professor of political science at Georgia Military College and a regular LifeZette contributor.[lz_pagination]