Much has been made over the recent Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs. FEC, which significantly altered definitions of free speech and regulations of corporate political spending.

Many have lashed out against the ruling, stating that a politically motivated court overturned a century of law and precedent in order to kowtow to corporate interests.

Strident voices across the political spectrum have stated that the Citizens United ruling opens the door to political bribery and corruption. One representative called it the worst Supreme Court decision since Dredd Scott.

Keith Olbermann stated that with this decision, “within 10 years every politician in this country will be a prostitute.”

President Obama even stated that the “ruling strikes at our democracy itself” and opens the flood gates for special interests to spend without limits in our elections.

They all couldn’t be more wrong.

The actual facts of the case are fairly benign. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Citizens United (a non-profit group focusing on restoring traditional American values) produced a documentary critical of candidate Hillary Clinton. Citizens United sought to show the film before the Democratic primaries through DirecTV on demand. Additionally, they produced 30-second spots to promote their film. It’s easy to ask what’s all the fuss over.

After all, this was not a big oil, banking or pharmaceutical company. This is simply a grassroots, non-profit organization run by public contributions of Americans who espouse a certain political ideology.

The ability of Americans to band together and promote their political views is in essence the basis of our democratic system. All they wanted to do was promote a film that discussed a political candidate. Does a film critical of Hillary Clinton really seem that egregious?

However, under the provisions of the McCain-Feingold Act, for-profit and not-for-profit corporations and unions were banned from broadcasting electioneering communications in the 30 days before a presidential primary and in the 60 days before the general elections.

Although Citizens United was a non-profit operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare and political activism, it was still a corporation, and was thereby banned from the very purpose for which it was established.  It wasn’t just the views of Citizens United that were being censored, but rather the entirety of the thousands of individual Americans who chose Citizens United as a representative of their political views.

Each and every one of these individuals lost their paramount constitutional right of free speech in the political process.  Their right to criticize and evaluate a candidate for the presidential office was suspended.

The real issue at stake in this case was censorship of free speech, and more importantly, censorship of political speech.

Should the ACLU be banned from airing political advertisements in the weeks leading up to an election because they are technically a corporation?  (The FEC thought so in 1984 when they moved to ban the ACLU’s criticism of Reagan’s civil liberties during his run for re-election.)

Should labor unions be prohibited from publicly airing their grievances against NAFTA because they too are considered to be corporations? What about a hypothetical ad run by Planned Parenthood criticizing Sarah Palin’s abortion policies? That too would be impermissible as Planned Parenthood is also a corporation.

These are all political organizations representing the views of the American public. To restrict their ability to voice their political opinions defrauds each and every American citizen’s right to engage in political debate.

Moreover, I was not aware of the stipulation of our constitution that being on a corporate payroll suspends one’s right to a political voice. The idea that allowing corporations to spend money on political endorsements will whitewash important issues and obstruct political pluralism is patently absurd.

For-profit corporations do not represent a monolithic entity comprised of one view on all issues.

Rather, as we’ve seen from indirect campaign donations, corporations represent a widely varied palette of political ideologies representative of America as a whole. What Citizens United has done is given everyone from the NAACP, the ACLU, Whole Foods and GE an overdue reprieve from censorship in the political process.

What Citizens United does not do is open the floodgates of corporate bribes in our political system. The decision merely permits corporations to spend money on political endorsement and advertising.

Under the ruling, corporations are still prohibited from making direct contributions to political candidates. This is an important distinction. Unlimited spending on television commercials is far different than unlimited spending directly into campaign coffers.

The issue of the amount of corporate money going directly into politicians’ pockets is indeed an issue.

Olbermann is at least 20 years behind in his analysis; politicians in this country already are prostitutes.

Washington is swamped with PAC and lobbyist bribes. One can’t help but wonder about the effect millions of dollars given to our representatives by the Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had upon the sweetheart bailout deal.

That is the time of campaign reform that is vitally necessary, not what Americans can access through DirecTV on demand on a Friday night.

the author.