Saturday, November 01, 2008

America Is Better Than All That

The media, however, isn’t. How can they turn a blind eye as Obama has a team of prosecutors and sheriffs in Missouri threatening to prosecute anyone who airs ads against their candidate which they deem to be untrue? Note that Obama has taken great liberties to try to distort statements made about him by McCain as being untrue. His objection to anything unfavorable as being “false” is a prelude to what he and his team would go after in their quest to stifle debate. Can there be a bigger challenge to free speech?

It is also worth mentioning that their call to action comes at the same time as the Obama campaign is airing ads throughout the Northeast saying that McCain and Palin would ban all stem cell research. I’d point out that no one wants to “ban” “all” stem cell research. In fact, President Bush, someone considerably to the right of McCain, is the first president to fund any embryonic stem cell research at all. President Clinton deferred the issue over possible moral objections, leaving it to the current administration to determine proper ethical grounds. And the current Administration did not “ban” research on existing lines, they just did not allocate grants for it.

The Obama campaign is threatening to sue television stations in Pennsylvania if they air negative ads about him. And what is the reaction of Chris Matthews, who is looking to run for the US Senate in Pennsylvania in 2010? Well, don’t ask him. He’s too busy offering sickeningly vivid renditions of how Obama makes him feel. Here’s a message to Chris: If you can’t stand up for free speech and against what can only be called thuggery, then you have no business even being a reporter. Forget about holding public office.

And it doesn’t stop there. Just this morning the Obama campaign removed reporters for three newspapers from its campaign. The three papers, the NY Post, the Dallas Morning News and the Washington Times had all endorsed McCain. If McCain pulled a similar stunt he’d be left without any of the mainstream media, who have sold whatever journalistic integrity they had left as they fight for their beloved orator of the Greek Temple.

Can we believe that this is what journalism has come to?

As for the news media themselves, certain reporters with a conscious have been able to examine the dangers of the wholesale sellout to Obama on the part of their industry. Notable thanks goes to Michael Malone of ABC who has shown himself to be a true journalist, and therefore writes that he’s embarrassed by recent media coverage to identify himself as same.

A free press allows for access to information. A press that turns the other way as freedom of speech is run roughshod over endangers the public. The effect upon the public interest can be devastating and we have a moral duty to stand up against this.

And here’s what the McCain campaign needs to do:

In the last days, go after Obama’s insane attack on civil rights and on free speech. Make an issue out of his supporters’ attacks on Joe the Plumber, an average man who dared to ask Obama a question he did not like. Expose the thuggish tactics of his so called “Truth Squad” in Missouri and his threats upon the free press in Pennsylvania.

Then point out that the capital gains rates under the Obama plan would first and foremost affect seniors who are living on their meager retirement savings. Capital gains rates do affect the middle class. McCain-Palin: Expose the Obama pipedream for what it is, in ways that the public can understand.

Note: In recent days I’ve had the opportunity to visit several key battleground areas first hand. The situation on the ground is far more pro-McCain than the media would have you believe. Things look good for our side.

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