"When the heavy hand of the state is imposed on the press, all of us lose," Barack Obama told a group of Kenyan journalists during an August 2006 trip to Africa. "The media does not have a formal role in the government, but it serves a critical function in providing information to the public so that they can hold the government accountable," he said.
Mr. Obama's remarks implied he supports the First Amendment. His comment that "Democracy can't function properly without a free press," suggested he understood the importance of robust scrutiny of elected officials. Yet, when given the opportunity, Mr. Obama's recent actions have contradicted his own statements.
The Obama campaign launched a multipronged assault on the First Amendment when it threatened television and radio stations airing content critical of Mr. Obama. The first targets were TV stations running an advertisement that has proven embarrassing to the presidential candidate. The ad focuses on Mr. Obama's 13-year relationship with Bill Ayers, a key member of the 1970s domestic terrorist group, the Weather Underground. The Weathermen bombed at least 12 locations, including the U.S. Capitol in 1971, the Pentagon in 1972 and the State Department in 1975. A 1970 San Francisco bombing killed one police officer and blinded another. The same year, three Weathermen perished in a Greenwich Village townhouse explosion. Unrepentant, Mr. Ayers told a New York Times reporter in remarks published on Sept. 11, 2001: "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough."
A group called American Issues Project paid for the ad to run on several TV stations in key battleground states. Press accounts say some of the stations are owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, for whom I work.
Another Obama target is Chicago radio station WGN. The source of Mr. Obama's ire is talk-show host Stanley Kurtz who is no Friend of Barry. The Obama campaign has urged supporters to attack WGN for permitting Mr. Kurtz to practice his profession.
Obama campaign lawyer Robert Bauer warned TV stations against airing the ad he claimed of containing "malicious falsity." Mr. Bauer's repeated demands that the Justice Department intervene is an example of an intrusion the First Amendment was crafted to guard against and the type of heavy-handed tactics Mr. Obama criticized in Kenya. But in 2006, Mr. Obama was the recipient of exclusively fawning media coverage. Reporters from CNN, AP, BBC, Reuters, a pair of Chicago TV stations and dozens of international and local media accompanied Mr. Obama on his Kenya visit.
Mr. Bauer called those behind the ads "lawbreakers" and accused them of acting "illegally." Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor labeled the ad "false."
Television stations typically have procedures in place to guard against airing patently false or grossly misleading ads. Generally, stations err on the side of running the commercials. The onus of responsibility to pull an ad usually falls on the complaining party to make their case. That the Obama camp has not challenged the content of the ad using established mechanisms speaks volumes. (Of note, if media outlets did not publish or broadcast ads that may be dubious, questionable or open to interpretation, then very few political ads would ever see the light of day.)
The Obama campaign's insistence on government intervention is reminiscent of a similar threat made by a John Kerry campaign official during the 2004 presidential race. At issue was "Stolen Honor," a documentary film featuring 13 former Vietnam POWs, including two Medal of Honor recipients, who took issue with statements made by Mr. Kerry during their captivity and during the 2004 campaign. Mr. Kerry supporters branded the former POWs liars.
Appearing opposite me while on Fox News Channel, Kerry spokesman Chad Clanton threatened retaliation by a Kerry administration if Sinclair aired any portion of "Stolen Honor." Mr. Clanton warned, "They [Sinclair] better hope we don't get elected." Mr. Clanton's threat was a colossal blunder.
In 2004, Mr. Kerry received considerable support from congressional Democrats. Eighteen senators sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission imploring the agency to prevent any broadcast of "Stolen Honor." Eighty-five House Democrats followed suit. The FCC correctly denied the requests from the Censorship Caucus.
Threats by the Obama camp should alarm every media organization, and more importantly, the public. Sadly, the number of media outlets that criticized brazen attempts in 2004 by Kerry officials and supporters to undermine the First Amendment could be counted on only one hand. Countless newspapers encouraged the FCC to take pre-emptive action.
The New York Times accused of the Medal of Honor recipients and their fellow POWs of making false claims and editorialized that the FCC should revoke Sinclair's broadcast licenses. (For the record, then-deputy editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal admitted to me he never watched "Stolen Honor" despite labeling the documentary a "propaganda film" that "makes no attempt at balance or fairness.")
The New York Time's exhortation of "no attempt at balance or fairness" came from the very same newspaper that earlier this year published a journalistically flawed Page One story alleging an affair between John McCain and a female lobbyist while relying on just two unnamed sources. That is an example of the kind of freedom of the press that Mr. Obama and Mr. Kerry support: one that supports their version of the truth.
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ElizaPosted:
Sun Sep 07, 2008 7:23 pm
Small town America should be wary. And they are.
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PhantomPosted:
Mon Sep 08, 2008 5:11 pm
Obama's Motion To Suppress
Free Speech: It appears Team Obama will stop at nothing to intimidate and harass those who would expose his long and cozy relationship with terrorist William Ayers. As in the '60s, lefties think freedom of speech applies only to them.
We have written extensively on the socialist past of Barack Obama as expressed in his proposals and associations, both personal and organizational. One of those associations is between Obama and Ayers, a leader of the Weather Underground, a '60s terrorist group.
It's true Obama has condemned and disassociated himself from the terrorist actions of Ayers and the Underground. But Ayers has never repudiated or apologized for his past, and if there's one word that should always precede his name, it would be "unrepentant."
Obama claims Ayers was just a "guy in the neighborhood," but clearly he was more than that. Obama misrepresents his relationship with the man in whose home his first fundraiser was held. Leading the expose of the true nature of that relationship has been National Review writer Stanley Kurtz.
Kurtz was in Chicago on Aug. 26 for the release of the papers of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a school reform project in which Ayers and Obama were involved. The papers had long been sought by Kurtz, who'd met with a stone wall erected by Obama's friends at the University of Illinois, Chicago. UIC had denied access to the supposedly public archives after Kurtz initially inquired, but his persistence paid off.
When local radio station WGN found out Kurtz was in town, he was invited to appear on its "Extension 720" radio show hosted by University of Chicago professor Milt Rosenberg that Wednesday night, Aug. 27.
Producer Zack Christenson said: "I called the Obama campaign, let them know that we were going to have Stanley Kurtz on the show, and offered them a chance to come on the show as well to rebut anything that he said." Christenson said the Obama campaign's response was, "This guy's a liar" and hung up.
The Obama Action Wire, which touts itself as an independent grass-roots organization dedicated to fighting "smears" against its candidate, sprang into action. It sent an e-mail to its members saying "we have a crucial opportunity to fight one of the most cynical and offensive smears ever launched against Barack."
Obama were given e-mail addresses, phone numbers and talking points. Christenson says there's no way to gauge the number of calls, but the lines were lit up all night. An estimated 5,000 e-mails were received.
"They were all using the same talking points that were sent out in the original Obama e-mail," Christenson noted. "They were all boilerplate e-mails."
One of the talking points in the Obama e-mail was: "Tell WGN that by providing Kurtz with airtime, they are legitimizing baseless attacks from a smear merchant and lowering the standards of political discourse. . . . It is absolutely unacceptable that WGN would give a slimy character assassin like Kurtz time for his divisive, destructive ranting on the public airwaves."
Earlier, the Obama camp bombarded Sinclair Communications with 93,000 e-mails attacking its broadcast of an ad by the independent group American Issues Project, linking Obama with Ayers in more than a casual way.
Obama campaign lawyer Robert Bauer has warned station managers, suggesting their broadcast license might be at risk: "Your station is committed to operating in the public interest, an objective that cannot be satisfied by accepting for compensation material of such malicious falsity."
Bauer has also written twice to the Justice Department, demanding it "take prompt action to investigate and to prosecute" the group and Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons, who funded the ad.
What's scary is the Obama camp may soon have control of the public airwaves through a badly misnamed Fairness Doctrine resurrected by an Obama administration and a veto-proof Congress. And those threatened lawsuits may yet be filed by an Obama Justice Department.
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PhantomPosted:
Fri Sep 26, 2008 6:55 pm
Obama Campaign Threaten Legal Action Over NRA Ads
Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign has sent threatening letters to news agencies in Pennsylvania and Ohio to stop airing ads exposing his anti-gun record sponsored by the National Rifle Association Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF).
The kicker? NRA-PVF's Ohio’s ads have not yet begun running.
“Barack Obama and his campaign are terrified of the truth,” declared Chris W. Cox, Chairman of NRA-PVF. “Sen. Obama's statements and support for restricting access to firearms, raising taxes on guns and ammunition and voting against the use of firearms for self-defense in the home are a matter of public record. NRA-PVF will make sure that everyone knows of Obama's abysmal record on guns and hunting.”
The Obama campaign sent cease and desist letters to news outlets in Pennsylvania and Ohio, denouncing the ads and demanding their removal from the airwaves. All stations where NRA-PVF has purchased or plans to purchase ads have been provided with documented evidence of Sen. Obama's anti-gun record.
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