The anti-war, anti-Bush left, so ready to sound the alarm about the violation of civil liberties the moment that Attorney General Ashcroft vows, say, to enforce the Patriot Act, are now suggesting that Clear Channel Worldwide Inc., a radio company, has done something improper by sponsoring patriotic rallies. A February 27 press release from the company quoted talk show host Glenn Beck as saying, “This is not a pro-war rally. I do not welcome any extremists with ‘Let’s bomb Saddam’ signs. These rallies are intended as a venue for reasonable, thoughtful, and prayerful people who want the opportunity to express their support for our troops.”

Only in the superheated atmosphere of the anti-war left could this sort of thing be interpreted as even marginally objectionable. A March 19 dispatch in the Chicago Tribune said the rallies were “a move that has raised eyebrows in some legal and journalistic circles.” It said, “While labor unions and special interest groups have organized and hosted rallies for decades, the involvement of a big publicly regulated broadcasting company breaks new ground in public demonstrations.”

Yesterday, Paul Krugman’s column in the New York Times asked, “Why would a media company insert itself into politics this way?” Oblivious to the fact that the publication of his column was itself an act of a big media company inserting itself into the politics of the war, he suggested there is a “quid pro quo” in which Clear Channel is somehow trying to sway government regulators by hosting what he described as “pro-war rallies.”

Tribune Co. and the New York Times, it might be noted, are media companies that insert themselves into politics every day by writing editorials endorsing candidates for public office. And lest the case be made that newspapers are subject to less regulation than radio companies, because the broadcast spectrum is public and limited and regulated by the FCC — well, one might note that both the Times and Tribune companies own radio stations, just like Clear Channel does. They both also have real estate interests and sports teams — the Times owns part of the Boston Red Sox, the Tribune Co. owns the Chicago Cubs. These, in other words, are big, publicly regulated media companies. The idea that they can print editorials telling voters to support a political candidate, but that Clear Channel should not be able to organize a patriotic rally, is hypocrisy of the rankest sort.

When voices spoke up in favor of corporate free speech during the debate over the political speech regulation legislation known as McCain-Feingold campaign finance “reform,” the answer that came back from the McCain-Feingold advocates was that what was being regulated was money, not speech. Now that companies have been sharply restricted from giving money to political parties, it’s natural for them to want to engage more directly in the political process. What are the antifree-speech forces going to claim next, that free assemblies are not assemblies, but money?

There’s a long history in America of companies of all sorts engaging in civic activity. Ben & Jerry’s, for instance, hands out leaflets in stores urging customers to write letters to their congressmen on everything from bovine growth hormones to the size of the defense budget. It’s not surprising to see this sort of thing happening more in wartime. It’s a form of corporate speech, and it all deserves defending under the Constitution.

Years ago, the Federal Election Commission tried to open an investigation of Reader’s Digest after it spent corporate dollars advertising an issue with an article critical of Senator Kennedy. Another time it looked into whether presidential candidate Steve Forbes should be allowed to write a column in his own magazine. Each action came on a complaint from liberal critics of the candidates involved. It’s probably a good bet that the questions about Clear Channel aren’t going to find fertile ground, but no doubt the left would shut down these patriotic rallies if it could.