After trying to shut down the Democrats? 527 committees ? which are obvious and, it seems to me, constitutional attempts to evade the McCain-Feingold ban of soft money to parties ? the Republicans have decided to fight fire with fire.

Campaign-finance ?reformers? will see this as a dangerous wildfire and plea for someone or something to come along and stamp it out. But for advocates of unbound political speech and robust competition in the marketplace of ideas, the appropriate response, it seems to me,is: burn, baby, burn.