The recent disclosure that Saudi Arabia has spent $14.6 million on a public relations campaign in America reminds us that last year Congress passed — and President Bush signed — the McCain-Feingold bill. Touted by its proponents as “campaign finance reform,” what this law really does is limit the political spending, and thus the free-speech rights, of American individuals, businesses, unions, advocacy groups, and political parties. These issues are now working themselves out before federal judges in the District of Columbia in the case known as McConnell v. FEC. Noteworthy in the current context is how low are the dollar amounts that trigger federal disclosure laws or outright bans. A law-abiding American citizen, for instance, can make only $37,500 a year in political contributions. Individuals aged 17 years or younger can’t donate even a cent to a political candidate, though in many cases they can get married, drive a car and carry a gun. Corporations and unions can’t spend any money at all on what the law defines as “electioneering communications” — basically, any broadcast, cable, or satellite advertising that refers to a political candidate and is shown within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election. Yet the Saudi Arabian government is free to spread $14.6 million on a campaign — including radio and television advertisements — that is clearly aimed at influencing political deliberations in America.

Not that the spending has worked. The executive director of the Saudi Institute, Ali Al-Ahmed, told our Timothy Starks that the popular opinion of Saudi Arabia among Americans has actually declined during the period in which the kingdom was spending. The editor of the quasi-official Arab News, Khaled Al-Maeena, referred to “the ineffective and virtually impotent Arab P.R. programs,” which he said “have themselves become objects of ridicule and serve to do no more than increase the existing sense of helplessness.” Mr. Al-Maeena blamed the failure of the public relations campaign on the skill of the “powerful Zionist-backed lobby.” But the more likely explanation is that the American people are not as easily gulled as the Saudi P.R gurus or the elite backers of campaign-finance “reform” might have you believe. If the American people are wise enough to see through a $14.6 million blizzard of Saudi propaganda, can’t they also be trusted to sort through the communications, electioneering or otherwise, of the Sierra Club, the AFL-CIO, the Republican and Democratic National Committees, and the National Rifle Association? If the Saudi spending shows the American judges that the American electorate is not so vulnerable that it must be sheltered from political speech, the kingdom will have finally provided America a useful, if unintended, service.