The Obama Thugocracy

I like Michael Barone a lot. He has always struck me as an extremely intelligent guy, and I tend to pay attention to what he says when he talks politics because the guy is a walking encyclopedia of election data. A couple of days ago, on October 11, he posted an article on National Review online that caught my attention. Here are some key excerpts from "The Coming Obama Thugocracy."

The basic premise of the article is that Barack Obama, and liberals in general, have become regular practicioners of efforts to stifle free speech.

Barone begins by recalling a fairly recent statement by Obama in which the candidate said, "I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors. I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face."

Barone says Obama supporters have gone beyond that call, though, and "...seem determined to shut people up." An example cited by Barone is the jamming of phone lines and the sending of "...hundreds of protest emails" by Obama supporters when Stanley Kurtz appeared on a WGN radio show in Chicago. Mr. Kurtz was investigating Senator Obama's association with Bill Ayers, the former domestic terrorist. "The message was clear," Barone writes. "We will make trouble for you if you let anyone make the case against The One."

Barone goes on. "Other Obama supporters have threatened critics with criminal prosecution," he says. Barone recalls an incident recently when St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch and St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce stated that individuals could be subject to criminal libel prosecutions for making "false" statements about Barack Obama. "I had been under the impression that the Alien and Sedition Acts had gone out of existence in 1801-02," Barone writes. "Not so, apparently, in metropolitan St. Louis."

"Similarly," Barone says, "the Obama campaign called for a criminal investigation of the American Issues Project when it ran ads highlighting Obama's ties to Ayers."

This is not unexpected, Barone says, arguing that "...attempts to shut down political speech have become routine for liberals." He references Democratic attempts to bring back the Fairness Doctrine as an effort "...to shut down the one conservative-leaning communications medium, talk radio." Liberal attempts at talk radio "...have mostly failed to draw audiences, and many liberals can't abide having citizens hear contrary views" Barone writes. And Barone expects a President Obama with a Democrat-majority Congress to try to revive the Doctrine.

Other examples offered by Barone: NBC's pulling of a Saturday Night Live skit that criticized Democrats over the financial crisis, and "card check" legislation that would ban secret ballot elections in unions. "The unions' strategy is obvious," Barone says, "Send a few thugs over to employees' homes - we know where you live - and get them to sign cards that will trigger a union victory without giving employers a chance to be heard."

Barone laments that liberals used to be defenders of free speech, but now seem to be listening to instructions "...from the college and university campuses where administrators, armed with speech codes, have for years been disciplining and subjecting to sensitivity training any students who dare to utter thoughts that liberals find offensive."

"The campuses," Barone says, "that used to pride themselves as zones of free expression are now the least free part of our society." Obama supporters and Obama himself, according to Barone, "...seem to find it entirely natural to suppress speech that they don't like and seem utterly oblivious to claims that this violates the letter and spirit of the First Amendment."