Barack Obama, like so many demagogues with a surrounding cult of personality, is now taking things surprisingly far, particularly as he has not yet won this election. He has enlisted law enforcement in Missouri to create a Barack Obama truth squad who will prosecute anyone who “lies” about Obama. The civil law of defamation and slander is apparently not enough for him, nor is it enough apparently for the Missouri law enforcement folks to at least give themselves a neutral label.
Obama is already in a bit of hot water for having his associates inundate news and radio outlets that host critics of Obama on the air, as if news is obligated not to criticize him.
This guy’s arrogance nearly cost him the primary. Middle of the road, working class, and elderly voters seem less impressed than young people and educated white liberals by his smooth talking schtick, seeing instead a guy with few accomplishments and a very exaggerrated sense of entitlement. (By way of example, in his debates with McCain, he said “As President” several times, rather than “if I’m given the privilege to be President . . .”)
This is actually scary stuff. Liberals have spent the last four years making both reasonable and unreasonable criticisms of the expansion of presidential power through items such as the Patriot Act and the Total Information Awareness project. Coupled with McCain-Feingold, Presidential power can easily be abused to alter an election. It’s something Bush has not done, to his credit. But can the Chicago machine politician wrapped up in the labeling of an ethical reformer promise the same? It’s hard to imagine this cynical guy who attached himself to some of the most unsavory people around–Tony Rezko, Jeremiath Wright, Bill Ayers–in a city famous for its corruption would not abuse presidential power in the form of various degrees of censorship for the narrow purpose of helping himself and his associates.
Political speech is at the core of First Amendment protections. It has long been safe from “prior restraint” and surrounded with broad protections, particularly in debatable questions of opinion and mixed questions of opinion and fact. It appears some overzelaous law enforcement perssonnel are going to shield Obama from the most anodyne criticisms under the rubric of combatting lies. Historically, the good sense of the American people, the news media, and the campaigns themselves performed this function.
What now will happen when people say Obama has associated with terrorists (he has) or visited Pakistan as a young man (he did) or went to a church that spewed anti-American hatred for twenty years (he did that too). Will these facts be labeled lies? Will the zealousness of his enthralled supporters undermine one of the most important American rights in the name of combatting hate and rumors? Obama’s rhetoric is the language of censorship nearly everywhere: it’s always cited as necessary to stop corruption and agitation. It’s the language of Huge Chavez and Valdimir Lenin alike.
Bush’s exercises of power are subject to a great deal of skepticism and media criticism, as well as resistance from his own party. This is overall a good thing. Who, however, will resist Obama when his favorite charge–racism–will be levied so promiscuously at those frail creatures of the media and the cultural elite, and elite which is easily stopped in its tracks by the very suggestion?
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Just think of one thing and one thing only! If this bailout does not go George W. Bush’s way then he might just take the steps to become that DICTATOR he wants to be!
It’s getting a little late in the game for that kind of talk, wouldn’t you think. I don’t think Obama will act like Hitler or Stalin. He may, however, act like the Mayor of Detroit on a national scale. Not a good thing.
Roach-
There is ample room to condemn Obama without assigning to him a Kafkaesque silhouette. For one thing, he’s morphed from an impassioned progressive into an egocentric prince.
For another, while he once understood and genuinely sought to console the frenzied spirit of a nation under siege, he now exploits our discord in the manner of a Grim Reaper.
Still, the truth is that the politics of, shall we say, nasty-speak and sharp-tongued, rhetorical spit predates even Madison and recurs in the DNA of every two-bit politico since him. And the race card has always been a constant companion(you need go no further than to examine the Missouri compromise, since you mentioned the state).
But there’s good news.
Equally so since Madison are those omnipresent constitutional saddlebags, starting with amendment one, that both delightfully permit and constrain the excesses of that vitriol.
Please. Save your thunder for darker clouds. Youre going to need it.
-resh
“he’s morphed from an impassioned progressive into an egocentric prince”
I have two problems with that statement.
1) most of Roach’s complaints about Obama stretch back years, so we aren’t talking about a recent development
2) why are those two things mutually exclusive?
“1) most of Roach’s complaints about Obama stretch back years, so we aren’t talking about a recent development ”
No, his “complaints” reside in the prospect of Obama usurping free speech protections; as evidence, Roach notes the Missouri Truth Squad and on-air media pressures. Those issues are recent, and now. Read Roach’s first sentence, and maybe you’ll spot the active tense of Obama’s illicit conduct. References to past associations are noted, yes, but Roach did that to establish some shady character profile, which I suppose he thinks adds to his case.
But those associations aren’t germane to his point, unless one is a McCarthyite. For example, would anyone seriously think that the lowlife Bill Ayers would condone or encourage a presidential power overload? Not in a million years.
“2) why are those two things mutually exclusive?”
They arent necessarily. I was merely trying to show a devolution in Obama’s character. It’s not a difficult task. For example, what was early on a statesman’s sincerity to help hapless folks soon was overcome by raw political expediency, and an increasing selfishness. He used the former to invite the latter.
In short, a kind of Jekyll and Hyde metamorphosis defined him. And it continues as his destiny nears.
I’m just not sold on the censorship angle, at all.
In Obama’s first campaign he had his opponents kicked off the ballot on technicalities. He launched his campaign with the help of unrepentant terrorist. And so on.
So if you want to believe that he’s was some hero who has fallen prey to hubris, that’s fine. But it seems pretty clear to me that he’s always been Hyde, just hiding behind a Jekyll facade.