Remember "swift-boating?" The term was coined during the 2004 election, years before Citizens United, when the 527 group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, ran a particularly vicious smear campaign against John Kerry. Restrictions on corporate money didn't prevent those ads from running at the time, and overturning Citizens United would do very little to prevent similar efforts in the future. If we didn't have super PACs we'd have 527 groups. If we pass laws to clamp down on 527 groups, some new organization would emerge. Money flows regardless of whatever leaky, legal dams we erect. Closing one loophole merely opens another. And focusing solely on how money influences elections takes the focus off of other, more important ways that money influences politics.

Colbert simply missed the mark in his super PAC satire, much as many on the left miss the mark when they rail against Citizens United. The ruling is a convenient bugaboo for our discomfort over money in politics -- but it barely scratches the surface when it comes to the role of corporate money in the political system.

It isn't just the power of corporations to influence elections that we should worry about. At least with attack ads everything -- except the donors' identities -- is pretty much out in the open.

The day-to-day grind of the political process that should worry Americans more. Lobbyists for powerful special interests descend on Washington in droves to influence the machinations of our democracy. Money is everywhere and was everywhere long before Citizens United. Men like Henry Paulson made their fortune participating in the very activities that they were later asked to regulate. Little wonder, then, that they turn blind eyes to Wall Street. After Bush left office, the new Democratic administration brought men like Tim Geithner on board. The revolving door spins the same for those on both sides of the political aisle.

There are many nefarious ways that governments and corporations can work together to the detriment of the average American citizen. The financial collapse of 2008 was the direct result of government at once propping up the housing industry and failing miserably to regulate Wall Street -- a task which, given the current political system, may be impossible regardless of the regulations we enact. The collusion between Washington and the most powerful American financial firms is a far more profound and troubling phenomenon than anything decided in Citizens United.

Meanwhile, the media's ability to arbitrarily set rules that govern who is and who is not included in debates is an exercise of power that few other corporations can imagine. Politics is little more than the messy transaction of power, after all, and money is just one of its currencies.

Between the powerful grip the biggest media corporations have on the political conversation and the multitude of revolving doors that keep our elected officials more beholden to special interests than to their own constituents, the free speech granted to groups of people by Citizens United -- whether unions or corporations or non-profits -- is hardly a hill to die on. Indeed, that same free speech is one of the few defining virtues of our democracy left intact -- and it's what media celebrities like Stephen Colbert rely on to do what they do every day. Free speech is what gives Colbert his influence in politics. That we are legally protected to put our money where our mouth is is an important part of the free speech equation.