When Barack cannot rebut: he sends goons

Mark Steyn:

The Obama campaign's response to uncongenial allegations is not to rebut them but to use its muscle to squash the authors.

The Obamas do not rebut because, in most cases, factual rebuttal is not possible.

When Stanley Kurtz went on radio to detail Barack connections to William Ayers and Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Obama Campaign was invited onto the show to rebut. When Barack faces unrebuttable facts, he sends goons. The Obama Campaign refused the invitation to go on the show, and instead directed goon callers to disrupt the show.

When David Freddoso went on radio to detail Barack's record as an old school, by-the-numbers liberal politician: Obama Campaign again directed goon callers to disrupt the show. The goons were only foiled b/c Freddoso' interview was pretaped.

More Steyn:

the only candidate using agencies of the state to suppress views with which he disagrees remains Barack Obama. In Missouri, the Senator has managed to enlist various county officials to threaten TV stations running "untrue" anti-Obama ads.

Gateway Pundit has details. Missouri's Governor Matt Blunt has issued a loud and blunt(!) statement condemning the Obama Campaign's tactics. Stanley Kurtz weighs in:

At the counterterrorism blog, Jeffrey Breinholt explains how even American libel laws can be used to intimidate and silence speech. As I point out in "Not Without a Fight," what really protects free speech here in the United States is the value we place upon it, and the shame we would feel handling criticism by way of law suits. When it comes to silencing critics, on the other hand, the Obama campaign appears to have no shame. That augers poorly for the culture of free exchange. As Tocqueville reminds us, habits of the heart, even more than the law itself, stand as our most important protections against tyranny. If Obama continues to break one free-speech taboo after another, the law will surely follow.

So continued media silence on Obama’s intimidation tactics threatens not only the fairness of this election, but press freedom itself.

The blog Macsmind, which has spent time on my blogroll, has been hacked and shut down after 2 million visitors watched video of Obama opposing various military technologies - including opposing missile defense which he claimed to support in Friday's debate. I once embedded that video on this blog, but YouTube has since pulled it. Macsmind had a non-YouTube version, and got hacked into temporary oblivion. Gateway Pundit, again, has details and the video.

Ace of Spades: this is war; child Obama was Muslim; sue me, bitches!

Truth Squad this.

If prosecutors are going to threaten those who "lie" about Obama, I guess we'll just have to start preparing the truth-is-a-defense-to-libel ground.

A lot of people thought that even though the Danish cartoons may have been excessively provocative, the fact that the cartoons were met with a threat of violence demanded they be displayed. If only to send the message that threats would not shut down free speech.

I hope many of the same people react similarly here.

I'll stand up for free speech - and frankly: also for truth. I think it's irrelevant that Barack touched Islam as a child - which is why I've never blogged about it. However, it's also truth which Barack has refused to acknowledge (and has refused to explicitly deny - instead issuing a pooh-pooh, nuanced, non denial denial), instead sending surrogates out to deride and dismiss anyone who mentions what is, in fact, the truth. That's a key point, and I should've blogged about it earlier: Barack is demeaning Americans for speaking truth. via Ace:

AP CAPTION: 20 months ago: This registration document, made available on Jan. 24, 2007, by the Fransiskus Assisi school in Jakarta, Indonesia, shows the registration of Barack Obama under the name Barry Soetoro into the Catholic school made by his step-father, Lolo Soetoro. The document lists Barry Soetoro as a Indonesian citizen, born on August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, and shows his Muslim step-father listed the boy's religion as Islam.(AP Photo/ Tatan Syuflana)