I'm a little disappointed in myself for not hearing about this until today, but I'll give myself some leniency because it's not big enough for national coverage and (for the most part) local coverage around here is all *a little* biased (read - ridiculously left). I'll try and do better next time.
JEFFERSON CITY - 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."
That sounded iffy to me (not enough facts, too much finger pointing), so I looked into it a little bit more.
Obama lawyer Robert Bauer sent 'cease and desist' letters the to TV and radio stations that were playing the NRA's commercials about Obama. You've seen them - they claim that Obama, if elected, would be the most anti-gun president in American history. That's a pretty big claim.
Unfortunately, it's a true claim.
Chris W. Cox, chairman of the NRA's Political Victory Fund: "Barack Obama would be the most anti-gun president in our nation's history. That's the truth. NRA-PVF has the facts on our side. No amount of running from or lying about his record and then intimidating news outlets in the hope of deceiving American gun owners and hunters is going to work. Those strong arm tactics may work in Chicago, but not in Pennsylvania and Ohio, and not as long as NRA-PVF has anything to say about it."
To further exemplify Sen. Obama's feelings toward free speech, check out this little snippet from Fredericksburg.com about the Obama campaign prohibiting signs and banners at a University of Mary Washington rally:
A UMW spokeswoman says that the Obama campaign required the sign-and-banner ban. 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."
Awesome. In all seriousness - it doesn't matter who you are going to vote for. As an American, it is your duty to protect free speech. So do it - or next time you'll be the one hauling your 'Honk if you hate the soldiers!' poster back to your Prius.
9 years ago
