Dave Barry...practical subversion at it's best.

Phone-y lobbyists hit by Dave Barry joke.... Did the Bush team have a constitutional right to pay telemarketers to ask South Carolinians if they knew that John McCain "has a black child"?*

Luckily for George Bush and others like him, they can still exercise that right without restraint by your signing up for the pesky new "Do Not Call" list--political calls are exempt.

Not good enough, says the ATA lobbying group (that's American Teleservices Association to its friends). They have filed suit to block the "unconstitutional" Do Not Call List.

A recent Dave Barry column suggested that readers exercise their own right to free speech by calling the ATA with their comments on this. Thousands of readers did so, prompting a hurt response from the ATA, as reported by Yahoo:

"It's difficult not to see some malice in Mr. Barry's intent," said Tim Searcy, executive director of the ATA, who said the added calls will be costly to his group because of toll charges and staffing issues.

Barry hardly sounded apologetic.

"I feel just terrible, especially if they were eating or anything," he said. "They have phones like the rest of us have phones. Their attitude seems to be if you have a phone, people are allowed to call you."

Surprisingly, Dave Barry is mistaken. When Slashdotters took up the story, they quickly learned that the ATA had added its own number to that wicked "Do Not Call" list. Shocking.

The number Dave Barry printed is now disconnected. And of course it is illegal as well as wrong to make prank phone calls. The law stands firm against the kinds of jokes played by 9 year-old kids!

But surely it's a fair use of free speech to call the ATA's legislative branch, whose toll-free number is listed on their contact page as (866) 500-4272, and urge them to lobby for better Do Not Call laws.

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* Yes--shockingly, the McCains had adopted a little girl from Bangladesh. Calls like this will be even more important in the 2004 election, with all those new picky restrictions on parts of campaigning policemen can get a look at.

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[Betsy Devine: Funny Ha-Ha or Funny Peculiar?]

6:51:50 AM