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September 16, 2008

Obama's 'Dogs of War'

Ed Lasky
[See also Obama's 'Dogs of War' Gameplan - editor]

By now, the Obama's campaign to silence critics is blatant. There is a certain hypocrisy at work as well: Barack Obama campaigned on the need for transparency.

Yet this constitutional law lecturer seems determined to chill the exercise of free speech. 
His campaign also seems to have declared war against a radio show hosted by a station just down the street from its campaign headquarters - The Milt Rosenberg Show. This happened just last night in a show that featured David Freddoso who authored a New York Times best-selling book: The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate.

A podcast of the show can be found here.

The Milt Rosenberg show on WGN is a broadcasting legend. For decades, Rosenberg has hosted a stimulating series of radio shows featuring a broad range of people. The format is designed to be a discussion among people with a variety of viewpoints.. He has invited representatives from the Obama campaign onto this show and an earlier show with National Review writer Stanley Kurtz (which was also disrupted by a similar coordinated barrage by the campaign) both invitations to participate and be heard were rejected. But the Obama campaign did send another response:

The Wall Street Journal's John Fund writes about what ensued:
The Obama campaign has developed a habit of hazing WGN, the Illinois radio station owned by the Chicago Tribune. Its offense is apparently committing free speech, since it has offered a platform for critics of Barack Obama.
An "Obama Action Wire" was emailed by the Obama campaign to key supporters yesterday urging them to protest WGN's decision to interview David Freddoso, a National Review writer who has written "The Case Against Barack Obama," a best seller.

"David Freddoso has made a career off dishonest, extreme hate mongering," the message said. "And WGN apparently thinks this card-carrying member of the right-wing smear machine needs a bigger platform for his lies and smears about Barack Obama -- on the public airwaves," the Obama email read. Mr. Freddoso's book is a sober look at Mr. Obama's career and positions.

Team Obama supporters responded to the appeal and flooded the station's phone lines and email boxes last night. The same thing happened just prior to an August 27 interview with Stanley Kurtz, a professor who succeeded in opening up access to University of Illinois files detailing Mr. Obama's ties to unrepentant 1960s terrorist William Ayers. In both interviews, the Obama campaign was offered an opportunity to send a representative to the program but did not respond.

Mr. Obama professes to want to transcend the "old politics" of bitterness and division, but when it comes to free speech, his campaign seems to fall back on the rabble-rousing traditions of his old "community organizing" days.


Milt Rosenberg said that in his 30 years of being a radio show host he has never seen such an organized protest directed against guests on his show and the show itself.

I listened last night. One of the callers who identified herself as a college journalism (!) student criticized Freddoso. All she did was read off the alert the Obama campaign sent out to its list members. She only admitted this fact when Rosenberg asked her if she was doing so. In other words..she was just following orders. Not a good sign for a budding journalist, not bothering to research the issues but not atypical from many of Obama's most enthusiastic followers.

The alert the Obama campaign sent out can be found here:

The fact sheet was fact checked over at National  Review and unsurprisingly was found wanting:


The Obama campaign is not interested in facts, after all. Facts would hurt the campaign. Hence the rabble rousing that Fund traces to Obama's community organizing days.

Denial of free speech, intimidation, threats of criminal prosecution, the launch of a group to "investigate" critics of Barack Obama , the use of the racism card, thousands of young followers robotically responding to marching orders from the campaign...

Welcome to Obama-land. It is not a hopeful place; it is instead a fearful place,

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