This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012.

I'm Caleb Brown.

President Obama says that super PACs distort the opinions of voters and allow those who are merely self-interested,

a disproportionate voice in the public arena.

But the President is now supporting super PACs that may help ensure his re-election.

John Samples, Director of the Cato Institute's Center for Representative Government,

discusses the President's new position on the value of big speech in presidential politics.

In what is probably his most notable state of the union moment, President Obama

chastised the Supreme Court for, in his words, overturning a century of law in the Citizens United decision that allowed corporations and unions

to advocate freely with their corporate treasury accounts in getting involved in elections in ways that

they had previously been prevented from.

Since then, of course, we have SpeechNow.org, the case that effectively helped create SuperPacts,

much to the pleasure of the plaintiffs in that case, including Cato's own Ed Crane.

And so now we're in a situation where Republicans have taken advantage of super PACs, mostly

to beat up on each other.

And President Obama, sensing the possibility that he will

not be re-elected, has decided to embrace Super PACs as well.

What kind of position does that leave him in?

Well, I mean, he has said recently, you know, after he embraced the Super PACs, that it was his view that they should be completely eliminated.

And it's pretty obvious on the face. should be completely eliminated.

And it's pretty obvious on the face of it the political context.

Consider these numbers.

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