While Republican commissioners on the Federal Election Commission seemed to have been thwarted last week when public pressure forced them to back down from rules that would have opened up blogs to regulation, some seem to fear that the revised rules don't go far enough to protect bloggers, podcasters, RSS feedsters and other expressive online sources. A strict and tortured interpretation of the new rules, published late last week, could theoretically put blogs written by paid bloggers under campaign finance regulations, although the FEC has a long history of instituting extremely weak enforcement and weaker interpretation of its own rules. A public comment period lasts through May 22, and the FEC will hold a public hearing on June 28.