Sunday, September 28, 2008

Obama Campaign Abuses First Amendment To Intimidate Foes

The Obama campaign and, most notably, St. Louis (MO) County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch are threatening lawsuits if people speak out against the übermessiah. Most notably, they have been intimidating TV station owners who run NRA based pro-gun, anti-Obama commercials. Didn't some guy do this back in the 1930's, in Germany? It sounds vaguely familiar...

From Protein Wisdom:

Mo. Gov. Blunt Statement on Obama Campaign’s Abusive Use of Missouri Law Enforcement

No mincing words here:

Gov. Matt Blunt today issued the following statement on news reports that have exposed plans by U.S. Senator Barack Obama to use Missouri law enforcement to threaten and intimidate his critics.

“St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch, St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer, and Obama and the leader of his Missouri campaign Senator Claire McCaskill have attached the stench of police state tactics to the Obama-Biden campaign.

“What Senator Obama and his helpers are doing is scandalous beyond words, the party that claims to be the party of Thomas Jefferson is abusing the justice system and offices of public trust to silence political criticism with threats of prosecution and criminal punishment.

“This abuse of the law for intimidation insults the most sacred principles and ideals of Jefferson. I can think of nothing more offensive to Jefferson’s thinking than using the power of the state to deprive Americans of their civil rights. The only conceivable purpose of Messrs. McCulloch, Obama and the others is to frighten people away from expressing themselves, to chill free and open debate, to suppress support and donations to conservative organizations targeted by this anti-civil rights, to strangle criticism of Mr. Obama, to suppress ads about his support of higher taxes, and to choke out criticism on television, radio, the Internet, blogs, e-mail and daily conversation about the election.

“Barack Obama needs to grow up. Leftist blogs and others in the press constantly say false things about me and my family. Usually, we ignore false and scurrilous accusations because the purveyors have no credibility. When necessary, we refute them. Enlisting Missouri law enforcement to intimidate people and kill free debate is reminiscent of the Sedition Acts - not a free society.”

Needless to say, no one actually has to be prosecuted for this to work. Prosecution will be impossible anyway in most cases thanks to the First Amendment. The point isn’t to jail critics but merely to price the cost of prospective litigation into their decision on whether to publicly criticize The One. Add this to the threatening letters his lawyers sent to station managers over the NRA ads, the flash-mob smearing of David Freddoso, and the appeal to the Justice Department to prosecute the American Issues Project for its perfectly factual yet devastating Ayers ad. Oh, the fun we’ll have with a deep blue Congress and an Obama-run DOJ and FCC. He promised you a “new type of politics,” didn’t he?

And a new type of politics it will be, too! — not that old divisive kind of politics where one is constantly being sniped at by the so-called “loyal opposition,” but rather a new and harmonious politics of consensus and agreement, brought about by the stern and loving hand of those in government willing to do the hard work of putting an end to all this hate by legislating, intimidating, or hectoring into silence the unpatriotic ingrates who refuse to get with the orgy of love that is Obama’s America.

Because remember: Venezuela-type Utopias just don’t happen; first, you have to find someone who loves his country so much that he’s willing to take on the role of Chavez.

For the greater good. And, y’know — so his wife can finally be proud and all.

****
update: Obama’s campaign to unify America by keeping all messages the same continues apace:

A UMW spokeswoman says that the Obama campaign required the sign-and-banner ban [during an Obama rally]. That campaign tells us that the ban is for “security” reasons. But a spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service, responsible for protecting presidential candidates, says that the service has no objection to signs at rallies, provided that no “part of the sign could be used as a weapon”–e.g., a heavy metal pole or a sharpened stick. Finally, the McCain campaign tells us, “We encourage people to make signs at our events.”

Maybe O! was afraid somebody would wave an American flag or something equally, you know, NASCAR-esque.

And like, how gauche is that?

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