09/05/99

nternet satirists are threatening to expose a major flaw of American politicians - that they lack a sense of humor.

When George W. Bush became the target of one boisterously unfair Web site, gwbush.com, he responded by buying up scores of site names, including some eye-poppingly raunchy ones, before they could be claimed by opponents.

The result, as with most good satire, is that the reaction has been funnier than the original material. The parody world of gwbush.com is spinning out a predictable invention in which Bush runs his presidential campaign from a federal prison after turning himself in for cocaine use. In the real world, Bush is spending good money to obtain the rights to bushbites.net and other such names, many of them worse. On some he is even posting campaign material or links to his regular campaign sites, so browsers hitting a vulgar-sounding Bush site can read his speeches.

Given the openness of the Internet and the imagination of its denizens, Bush has no prayer of preventing an abundance of needling, so his attempt to silence it with money is bizarre. Satire and cyberspace are a natural pair.

There are, it is true, many intriguing questions rising from the politics corner on the information superhighway. Should a candidate's Internet activities be regulated in the same way print and broadcast material are? What about independent Web sites? If an independent site supporting a candidate includes a link to that candidate's site, is this the same as printing a phone number, or is it something of value, and, if so, how is that value set? The Federal Election Commission has indicated that such links have value, but former commissioner Trevor Potter warns about a chilling effect.

Some guidelines are needed to prevent abuses, such as candidates setting up bogus independent sites to support themselves or sink opponents.

But as Congress and the FEC come to grips with these issues, the emphasis should not be on the Internet's dangers but on its healthy potential to reinvigorate political debate - humor included.