[Vision2020] The coming liberal thugocracy

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BARONE: The coming liberal thugocracy
Michael Barone

COMMENTARY:
"I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your
neighbors," Barack Obama told a crowd in Elko, Nev. "I want you to
talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are
Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face."
Actually, Obama supporters are doing a lot more than getting into
people's faces. They seem determined to shut people up.

That's what Obama supporters, alerted by campaign e-mails, did when
conservative Stanley Kurtz appeared on Milt Rosenberg's WGN radio
program in Chicago. Mr. Kurtz had been researching Mr. Obama's
relationship with unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist William
Ayers in Chicago Annenberg Challenge papers in the Richard J. Daley
Library in Chicago — papers that were closed off to him for some days,
apparently at the behest of Obama supporters.

Obama fans jammed WGN's phone lines and sent in hundreds of protest
e-mails. The message was clear to anyone who would follow Mr.
Rosenberg's example. We will make trouble for you if you let anyone
make the case against The One.

Other Obama supporters have threatened critics with criminal
prosecution. In September, St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob
McCulloch and St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce warned
citizens that they would bring criminal libel prosecutions against
anyone who made statements against Mr. Obama that were "false." I had
been under the impression that the Alien and Sedition Acts had gone
out of existence in 1801–'02. Not so, apparently, in metropolitan St.
Louis. Similarly, the Obama campaign called for a criminal
investigation of the American Issues Project when it ran ads
highlighting Mr. Obama's ties to Mr. Ayers.

These attempts to shut down political speech have become routine for
liberals. Congressional Democrats sought to reimpose the "fairness
doctrine" on broadcasters, which until it was repealed in the 1980s
required equal time for different points of view. The motive was
plain: to shut down the one conservative-leaning communications
medium, talk radio. Liberal talk-show hosts have mostly failed to draw
audiences, and many liberals can't abide having citizens hear contrary
views.

To their credit, some liberal old-timers — like House Appropriations
Chairman David Obey — voted against the "fairness doctrine," in line
with their longstanding support of free speech. But you can expect the
"fairness doctrine" to get another vote if Barack Obama wins and
Democrats increase their congressional majorities.

Corporate liberals have done their share in shutting down anti-liberal
speech, too. "Saturday Night Live" ran a spoof of the financial crisis
that skewered Democrats like House Financial Services Chairman Barney
Frank and liberal contributors Herbert and Marion Sandler, who sold
toxic-waste-filled Golden West to Wachovia Bank for $24 billion. Kind
of surprising, but not for long. The tape of the broadcast disappeared
from NBC's Web site and was replaced with another that omitted the
references to Mr. Frank and the Sandlers. Evidently NBC and its
parent, General Electric, don't want people to hear speech that
attacks liberals.

Then there's the Democrats' "card check" legislation that would
abolish secret ballot elections in determining whether employees are
represented by unions. The unions' strategy is obvious: Send a few
thugs over to employees' homes — we know where you live — and get them
to sign cards that will trigger a union victory without giving
employers a chance to be heard.

Once upon a time, liberals prided themselves, with considerable
reason, as the staunchest defenders of free speech. Union organizers
in the 1930s and 1940s made the case that they should have access to
employees to speak freely to them, and union leaders like George Meany
and Walter Reuther were ardent defenders of the First Amendment.

Today's liberals seem to be taking their marching orders from other
quarters. Specifically, from the college and university campuses where
administrators, armed with speech codes, have for years been
disciplining and subjecting to sensitivity training any students who
dare to utter thoughts that liberals find offensive. The campuses that
once prided themselves as zones of free expression are now the least
free part of our society.

Obama supporters who found the campuses congenial and Mr. Obama
himself, who has chosen to live all his adult life in university
communities, seem to find it entirely natural to suppress speech they
don't like and seem utterly oblivious to claims this violates the
letter and spirit of the First Amendment. In this campaign, we have
seen the coming of the Obama thugocracy, suppressing free speech, and
we may see its flourishing in the four or eight years ahead.
• Michael Barone is a nationally syndicated columnist.
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2008/oct/13/the-coming-thugocracy/print/