When Republicans attacked Sen. Barack Obama's lack of executive experience, the Democratic presidential nominee, who as a onetime community organizer had only run a few voter drives and job training programs in Chicago, countered that overseeing his presidential campaign, an operation with a singular focus getting him elected a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars and almost too many employees to count, qualified as executive experience.
Voters should take notice. If how candidate Obama runs his campaign is an indicator as to how a President Obama would run the government, then look out.
Last week, in the all-important swing state of Missouri, the Obama campaign took a pre-emptive strike aimed at silencing its critics in the Show-Me State when it announced that the campaign had recruited a number of the state's Democratic prosecutors and sheriffs to head up its so-called "Truth Squad."
The announcement quickly raised the eyebrows of the state's media outlets. A St. Louis television station jumped on the story and reported that "Senator Barack Obama's presidential campaign is asking Missouri law enforcement to target anyone who lies or runs a misleading television ad during the presidential campaign."
According to the Obama campaign, the group of law enforcement officials is charged with "respond(ing) quickly, forcefully, and aggressively when John McCain or his allies launch inaccurate claims or character attacks about Barack Obama, or when they distort Barack Obama's record or plans."
Gov. Matt Blunt responded quickly to the Obama campaign's heavy-handed tactic. The Missouri Republican claimed in a written statement that what "Senator Obama and his helpers" were doing was "scandalous beyond words." He asserted that "the party that claims to be the party of Thomas Jefferson is abusing the justice system and offices of public trust to silence political criticism with threats of prosecution and criminal punishment."
Meanwhile in Pennsylvania, a state where Obama and McCain are slugging it out, Obama has taken aim at television stations that are running an ad from the National Rifle Association, which takes Obama to task for his anti-Second Amendment record.
Robert F. Bauer, the campaign's general counsel, sent stations threatening letters asserting that "Failure to prevent the airing of 'false and misleading advertising may be probative of an underlying abdication of licensee responsibility.'" He argued that "for the sake of both FCC licensing requirements and the public interest, your station should refuse to continue to air this advertisement."
In both instances, such bullying by the Obama campaign shouldn't be taken lightly. It's obvious they are trying to squelch the very political speech guaranteed by the First Amendment. History provides a troubling example of presidents who made a mockery of the Constitution in order to quash political dissent.
President Woodrow Wilson was not only the first U.S. President to set up a propaganda ministry the Council on Public Information, but his Justice Department launched the American Protective League, which was an organization that deputized many Americans to spy on those with whom they had contact in their everyday lives. During his administration, editors were bullied, journalists were jailed and dissent was discouraged all in the name of the public good.
Does anyone doubt that a President Obama, plagued by numerous detractors, would use the force of the federal government to silence his critics? Perhaps that is what Michelle Obama was saying in her speech to the Democratic Convention when she claimed that her husband sees the "the world as it is" and "the world as it should be."
(David Sanders writes twice weekly for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock and is a host of the Arkansas Education Television Network's "Unconventional Wisdom." His e-mail address is DavidJSanders@aol.com.)
