McCain: "Relax, bloggers, you're journalists too"

As reported by CNET News, John McCain (co-author of the McCain-Feingold campaign reform law of 2002) has recently gone on record concerning a recent interview with Bradley Smith (also on CNET) where Smith claimed that the new law will treat bloggers as campaign contributors, not journalists, and make them subject to the same caps and fines as any other political contributor.

Said McCain in a prepared statement, "There is simply no reason--none--to think that the FEC should or intends to regulate blogs or other Internet communications by private citizens. Suggestions to the contrary are simply the latest attempt by opponents of reform to whip up baseless fears."

Whew!

(Thanks, as always, to blogger Steven Rubel for pointing this out.)