Dictator!
Jeff Jacoby, the Boston Globe’s token rightwing warmonger, has fun with the idea of Bush as one …
Dictator, that is. Rightwing warmonger? The argument can be made. But:
Bush as a ruthless autocrat? It would be easier to take the idea seriously if it weren’t for the omnipresent clamor of voices denouncing the man. Tyrants have a way of squelching public dissent and intimidating their critics. Whatever else may be said about the Bush administration, it has never cowed its opponents into silence. If anything, the past eight years have set new records in vilifying a sitting president: “Bush = Hitler” signs at protest rallies; Crude “Buck Fush” bumper stickers; a 2006 movie depicting Bush’s assassination; The New Republic’s cover story on “The Case for Bush Hatred.” The denunciation has been unending and often unhinged, yet Bush has never tried to censor it.
And compares that to the Obama camp’s track record before actually achieving any statuatory power …
When the National Rifle Association produced a radio ad last month about Obama’s shifting position on gun control, the campaign’s lawyers sent letters to radio stations in Ohio and Pennsylvania, urging them not to run it - and warning of trouble with the Federal Communications Commission if they did. “This advertisement knowingly misleads your viewing audience,” Obama’s general counsel Bob Bauer wrote. “For the sake of both FCC licensing requirements and the public interest, your station should refuse to continue to air this advertisement.”
Similar lawyer letters went out in August when the American Issues Project produced a TV spot exploring Obama’s strong ties to former Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers. Station managers were warned that running the anti-Obama ad would be a violation of their legal obligation to serve the “public interest.” And in case that wasn’t menacing enough, the Obama campaign also urged the Justice Department to launch a criminal investigation.
Just wait till Obie actually owns the Justice Department. They can say what they will about Bush, and they do, as Jacoby notes, but all his perceived transgressions have been in furtherance of national security, in the midst of a hot war with a very real enemy. That’s if you think he transgressed at all.
Topics: Bush, Obama, free speech, hated Crusaders
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:15 am on Wednesday, October 29, 2008
5 Responses to “Dictator!”
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October 29th, 2008 at 9:35 am
I doubt that The Mighty O! will have any qualms about using the DOJ to intimidate His critics should He win the election.
October 29th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Jeff could also have mentioned the public efforts of the Obama campaign to all but shut down WGN radio - on two separate occasions - for the ‘crime’ of hosting Obama critics.
On a related note, who doubts that under an Obama Administration, the Acorn investigations will die a quick and quiet death?
October 29th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Yes, if Obama wins, I expect him to turn the focus of these agencies inwards towards his marxist goal of wealth redistribution. Even Clinton did that to some extent, and he was not a true believer like Obama.
October 29th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
I think if Obama wins, the country will spend decades undoing the damage his administration does to us in four years. If it’s even possible by then to undo the damage. For sure, race relations will be set back a hundred years, rather than just the twenty-five Obama has managed so far.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
RebeccaH, we’re still undoing the damage from the sixties. I think that your decades might ‘just’ cover it.