Free expression forever!(Editor's Note)

• Author: Gillespie, Nick

I'M WRITING THIS about three weeks before the presidential election, and it's anybody's guess who will win. This much, however, is already clear: Free expression--that most basic of rights--is alive and well in contemporary America. Indeed, those of us who believe in freedom of speech can take pleasure in the nearly complete failure of the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which was designed to "get the money out of politics. "That is, the Democratic and Republican incumbents who passed it had hoped to make their fives easier by silencing rivals and outside groups.

Yet the agenda for this presidential campaign has in many ways been dictated by much-demonized "527 groups" such as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and MoveOn. You know that speech restrictions aren't working when their authors' heads explode on national TV. That happened in August on Face the Nation, when Sen.John McCain (R-Ariz.) declared the Federal Election Commission "corrupt" for allowing the 527s to buy (legally) radio and TV ads.

It's appalling that restrictions on speech exist, but we take our fun where we can find it. Several pieces in this issue explore such fun. Our cover story, "Disney's War Against the Counterculture" (page 20), tell's the tale of the Air Pirates, cartoonists who dared to parody Mickey Mouse and friends in the early 1970s. Citing the First Amendment, the Air Pirates fought the law--and lost badly. Yet their defeat ultimately paved the way for a broader understanding of "fair use" in an age when copyright holders work to muzzle any unauthorized use of material.

In "Love and...