Obama and free speech

Rich Lowry has an article worth reading about the chill effect Obama's campaign and supporters are embracing in curbing freedom of speech. Some excerpts:

When an outside group ran TV ads pointing out links between Obama and the former Weatherman terrorist Bill Ayers, the Obama campaign asked the Bush Justice Department -- yes, that Bush Justice Department, the fount of all evil -- to open a criminal investigation.

The Obama campaign's effort dovetails with the work of an outfit called Accountable America, run by a former MoveOn.org operative. It is devoted to threatening conservative donors with legal action and exposure of any embarrassing details of their private lives if they give money to groups running ads against Obama. The New York Times account says the group hopes to create "a chilling effect," but the phrase is used non-pejoratively.

Liberal editorial boards have apparently lost their former zest for the First Amendment. Consider this approving sentence from a New York Times editorial: "The wholesale descent into Swift Boat campaigning has been blocked -- for now -- by a federal judge in Virginia." It was written about a judge denying an injunction against the Federal Election Commission sought by a pro-life group running radio ads attacking Obama. The group thinks the First Amendment protects political speech; unfortunately, the courts disagree.

But the Times goes beyond mere legalities. It asserts with no evidence that the group's advertising is "lies," then urges the FEC to "be vigilant for what will inevitably be fresh attempts to mislead voters with fresh lies." Here's a newspaper charging a governmental agency with policing and shutting down campaign ads it doesn't like.

It's all just a taste of what's to come if Obama wins and Democrats have even bigger majorities in Congress, emboldening them to try to crush their antagonists once and for all. "Hate is not a family value" was a popular bumper sticker on the left during the 1990s. Now, the left has embraced hate as, if not a family value, the organizing spirit of its long assault on George W. Bush, and anyone else in the way, from Joe Lieberman to Sarah Palin.

America's partisan politics has always featured its share of rancorous abuse, but there's something rancid at the heart of the new, blog-driven left that believes its bullying childishness has led the way out of the wilderness. This spirit will inevitably seep into an Obama administration. Whatever Obama's professions of his commitment to cross-partisan understanding, he's never confronted the left of his own party and has always been willing to engage in hardball when it suits his purposes.

Please note this blog was started in part because a cabal of Obama supporting moderators on a forum I participated on threatened to ban me for my vocal support of Sarah Palin and John McCain. I have curbed my political participation on that forum and created this blog as an unfettered outlet for expressing my political opinion.

This is what Feminism does NOT look like

Quick to denounce their dissenters, California NOW has issued a statement making sure we all understand that Shelly Mandell was speaking for herself only (as Shelly made clear in her comments). Wouldn't want to be caught actually supporting strong, independent, courageous women like Shelly or Sarah Palin, would NOW? No, their brand of feminism is a big, fat, lie.

Obviously, Palin can't be a feminist because she is a mother of 5, who is happily married, with a husband who is fully supportive of her and her ambitions; she was in the PTA, became Mayor of her town, moving on to take on big oil, and becoming the Governor of Alaska. Now she, at 44, is the second woman candidate for Vice President of the United States in its history. But by NOW's thinking, she TOTALLY disqualifies as a feminist, despite being the first to publicly thank Geraldine Ferraro for cutting the path for her, and always making sure to give mad props to all the women who came before her, such as Hillary Clinton. No, according to NOW that's not a feminist at all, because, you know, she's....sotto voce...Republican....BITE ME, NOW! You have turned feminism into a big, fat lie.

Yeah, she is pro-life, but she translates that as being pro-mother, and wants to get more support for women as mothers (surely not a bad thing), why do we as feminists have to hate motherhood? Or think that we cannot be mothers and successful women at the same time? Palin is an icon for working mothers, she is a powerful symbol of what we are all capable of. NOW should be ashamed of itself, for turning their backs on Sarah Palin, and all the women she represents, and is an inspiration to. If Sarah Palin could energize Republicans, think of what she could be doing for feminism. But nooooooooooo......NOW has to support the empty suit. Not women.

I hope you are still reading this, NOW. You were kind enough to make a point of showing up on this little, unheard of blog to post your statement in the comments. I appreciate that you want your position clarified - that is completely understandable. But this is one feminist who is bitterly disappointed by it. The contemporary feminist movement is OVER. Y'all just sold out American women for a cult of personality.