Nutter managed to inflame not only the rightwing blogosphere, but also many liberals wary of government meddling. The charges of free speech suppression are overplayed: the commission's powers are, after all, limited to more speech. What is more significant is that Nutter – a black mayor who is presiding over the closing of 23 largely black schools and a rising city prison population, and who has repeatedly defended Philadelphia's controversial police stop-and-frisk initiative – managed to change the subject.