'Obama thugocracy'

It's bad enough that the Obama campaign is attempting to buy the 2008 election by accepting illegal campaign contributions from foreigners.

It's bad enough that the Obama campaign is attempting to steal the 2008 election by supporting the efforts of ACORN, a far-left activist group under criminal investigation in more than a dozen states.

It's bad enough that the Obama campaigns cries "racism" every time somebody brings up Barack Obama's ties to far-left extremists like domestic terrorist William Ayers.

But the Obama campaign has now turned to intimidation tactics to suppress all opposing viewpoints.

Veteran political observer Michael Barone calls it "Obama thugocracy."

From his latest column:

At one time, liberals prided themselves, with considerable reason, as the staunchest defenders of free speech. Union organizers in the 1930s and 1940s made the case that they should have access to employees to speak freely to them, and union leaders like George Meany and Walter Reuther were ardent defenders of the First Amendment.

Today's liberals seem to be taking their marching orders from other quarters. Specifically, from the college and university campuses where administrators, armed with speech codes, have for years been disciplining and subjecting to sensitivity training any students who dare to utter thoughts that liberals find offensive. The campuses that used to pride themselves as zones of free expression are now the least free part of our society.

Obama supporters who found the campuses congenial and Obama himself, who has chosen to live all his adult life in university communities, seem to find it entirely natural to suppress speech they don't like, utterly oblivious to claims that this violates the letter and spirit of the First Amendment.

In this campaign, we have seen the coming of the Obama thugocracy, suppressing free speech, and we may see it flourishing in the four or eight years ahead.

Read the full column at the Investor's Business Daily Web site.