Stanley Kurtz, William Ayers and Barack Obama's Attempt to Suppress Free Speech

The Barack Obama Campaign seriously does not like discussion or reporting on the relationship between their candidate and the unrepentant terrorist, William Ayers. Recently National Review columnist Stanley Kurtz found out just how the Obama people don't like it.

Stanley Kurtz was on a local radio talk show in Chicago hosted by Milt Rosenberg to discuss his research of the archives of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge where Barack Obama and William Ayers both worked. Upon hearing of the interview, the Barack Obama campaign send a mass email to its supporters urging them to flood the radio station's phone lines and send emails denouncing Stanley Kurtz and his investigation.

According to Ed Lasky at the American Thinker, there followed a circus such as host Milt Rosenberg had not seen in his thirty year career in broadcasting. There was clearly a campaign to jam the phone lines of the radio station will calls that not just disagreed with Stanley Kurtz, but demanded that he be taken off the air and his investigation stopped.

National Review's Guy Benson offered a flavor of some of the calls:

"One female caller, when pressed about what precisely she objected to, simply replied, "We just want it to stop!" Another angry caller was asked what "lies" Kurtz had told in any of his reporting on Barack Obama. The thoughtful response? "Everything he said is dishonest." The same caller later refused to get into "specifics." Another gentleman called Kurtz "the most un-American person" he'd ever heard. Several of the callers did not even know Stanley's name, most had obviously never read a sentence of his meticulous research, and more than simply read verbatim from the Obama talking points."

The Obama Campaign had been requested to send a representative to appear on the show to offer a response to Stanley Kurtz. Despite the fact that Obama Campaign headquarters was just a few blocks away from the radio station, the campaign demurred.

The Milt Rosenberg Show incident follows on the heels of attempts by the Obama Campaign to suppress an ad offered by an independent group detailing Barack Obama's relationship with William Ayers. It appears that when it comes to this issue, Barack Obama is more than willing to resort to "the Chicago way" of dealing with inconvenient opponents.

And that leads to a chilling question. What will Barack Obama do to his opponents if he were to be elected President? Democrats are attempting to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, an archaic regulation that was done away with in the 1980s, that would have the effect of suppressing political speech from the air ways. Even without the Fairness Doctrine, past unscrupulous Presidents-Richard Nixon comes to mind-have not been shy about using the mechanism of government, the IRS, the campaign finance laws, and even the FBI to harass political opponents.

It looks like that beneath the smiles and the soaring rhetoric, we might be about to elect such a President again.

Sources: Obama campaign turns thuggish, Ed Lasky, The American Thinker, August 28th, 2008
Stanley Kurtz's Fairness Doctrine Preview, Guy Benson, National Review Media Blog, August 28th 2008
Obama Attempts to Spike William Ayers Ad, Mark R. Whittington, Associated Content, August 26th 2008