Senator Obama piously proposed a law in 2006 to outlaw the sort of intimidation his own campaign has been practicing this year. In a blog entry titled Barack Obama's Dogs of War American Thinker described two concentrated campaigns launched by Obama supporters against guests on the two separate episodes of the Chicago talk radio institution, the Milt Rosenberg Show. The guests were writer Stanley Kurtz and David Freddoso (who wrote The Case Against Barack Obama http://www.amazon.com/Case-Against-Barack-Obama-Unexamined/dp/1596985666) respectively. The Obama campaign released an action alert to its supporters to call the show and send emails to protest the appearance of these two guests. The response was over the top: phone lines were jammed, the email system was blitzed. Callers who were not complainers had a difficult time getting through. Milt Rosenberg said in his decades of hosting the show he had never experienced such a concerted campaign against his show or guests.
The effect was to chill free speech.
The irony behind this campaign?
Barack Obama himself had proposed the Election Jamming Prevention At of 2006 which would have made it illegal for such campaigns to be launched for political purposes. Blogger Dingobat caught the hypocrisy. From the act:
In recent elections, there have been allegations of political campaigns and committees using telephone jamming techniques to shut down the communication operations of groups supporting their political opponents. (Sec.2.4)
The use of telephones or other communication devices to jam election-related communications should be prohibited in order to protect qualified voters' right to vote. (Sec.2.7)
Such techniques would include any with the "intent to"
- annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person at the called number or who receives the communications (Sec.3.a.1.i)
- prevent or obstruct the broadcast or exchange of election-related information (Sec.3.a.1.ii)
And just to be clear, "the term `election-related information' means information related to- endorsement, support, promotion of, or opposition to any clearly identified candidate..." (Sec.2.5.A)
His act was never passed by the Senate (vaporware is good for campaign purposes). Nevertheless, Barack Obama knew that such harassment interfered with the informing of the electorate that is so important for a democracy. Yet he and his campaign had no problem engaging in such actions to further his own ambitions.
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