Chilling Free Speech?

IBD has an editorial that is a wake up call for everyone who cares about free speech in America.

Conservative-friendly media better get ready. Should Barack Obama win the presidency and the Democrats control Congress, as now seems likely, they will launch a full-scale war to drive critics — especially on political talk radio — right out of legitimate public debate.

Signs of what the new environment will be like for the right are already evident:

• When the National Rifle Association recently released television and radio ads in Pennsylvania targeting Obama's history of anti-gun votes, the Obama campaign's general counsel fired off bullying letters to stations that ran the spots, implying that they may have violated public-interest obligations.

• When the 527 group, the American Issues Project, came out with a commercial linking Obama to former Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers, the campaign (unsuccessfully) complained to the Department of Justice that AIP had broken campaign finance laws, and managed to spook some stations away from the ad.

• When two different conservative writers looking into Obama's background appeared on Chicago's WGN-AM Radio, the campaign's "action wire" energized its activists to bombard the station with rage-filled phone calls and e-mails, making the program more difficult to conduct.

(The show, hosted by the eminently reasonable Milt Rosenberg, had on both occasions invited the Obama campaign to send a representative to respond; the campaign preferred to answer with digital brownshirts.)

These crude efforts are only a start.

Indeed these efforts are just the beginning. In Missouri, supporters of Senator Obama (who just happen to be law enforcement officials) threatened legal action against people who ran ads against Obama, which earned them a very stern rebuke from their boss the Governor of Missouri. In Texas, Obama supporters are siccing the Secret Service on people who voice opposition to "The One".

The current "Democratic" leadership is on the record that they support the "Hush Rush" bill and will make sure that any legislation to stop it gets killed in committee. They have not been shy about admitting it. It's nice to know just how supportive the "Democratic" party is of our most fundamental basic rights.....

But fear not. They would never come for the internet.....right?????