Hey kids! Let's set up an agency to monitor and censor the internet!

At least, Bill Clinton thinks it's a splendid idea:

The agency, Clinton said, would "have to be totally transparent about where the money came from" and would have to be "independent" because "if it's a government agency in a traditional sense, it would have no credibility whatever, particularly with a lot of the people who are most active on the internet."

"Let's say the U.S. did it, it would have to be an independent federal agency that no president could countermand or anything else because people wouldn't think you were just censoring the news and giving a different falsehood out," Clinton said.

"That is, it would be like, I don't know, National Public Radio or BBC or something like that, except it would have to be really independent and they would not express opinions, and their mandate would be narrowly confined to identifying relevant factual errors" he said. "And also, they would also have to have citations so that they could be checked in case they made a mistake. Somebody needs to be doing it, and maybe it's a worthy expenditure of taxpayer money."

There are so many things wrong with this idea - take your pick. But what I find truly chilling is that a former president of the United States would suggest it. He more than anyone else knows the power of government and what it can do to violate the rights of citizens.

And don't you love the idea of the liberal NPR or far far left BBC being the model for "truthiness" on the internet? Looking through a liberal prism, any conservative claims would be considered lies, and just about any liberal claim would be accepted as truth. Only liberals believe those entities give an objective view of the world in their news coverage.

The rest of us know better.