Liberal Fascism--Obama thugs try to thwart free speech

Chicago Tribune's The Swamp blog:

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign organized its supporters Wednesday night to confront Tribune-owned WGN-AM in Chicago for having a critic of the Illinois Democrat on its air.

"WGN radio is giving right-wing hatchet man Stanley Kurtz a forum to air his baseless, fear-mongering terrorist smears," Obama's campaign wrote in an e-mail to supporters. "He's currently scheduled to spend a solid two-hour block from 9:00 to 11:00 p.m. pushing lies, distortions, and manipulations about Barack and University of Illinois professor William Ayers."

Kurtz, a conservative writer, recently wrote an article for the National Review that looked at Obama's ties to Ayers, a former 1960s radical who later emerged as a school reform advocate in Chicago.

The magazine had been blocked in its initial attempts to obtain records from the University of Illinois at Chicago regarding a school reform initiative called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which Obama chaired and Ayers co-founded.

Obama critics were quick to suggest that political clout could be involved in seeking to protect Obama from embarrassment. The school later reserved its position and made the records available Tuesday.

On Wednesday evening, Obama's campaign urged supporters to call the radio station to complain.

"Tell WGN that by providing Kurtz with airtime, they are legitimizing baseless attacks from a smear-merchant and lowering the standards of political discourse," the note said.

"It is absolutely unacceptable that WGN would give a slimy character assassin like Kurtz time for his divisive, destructive ranting on our public airwaves," the note continued. "At the very least, they should offer sane, honest rebuttal to every one of Kurtz's lies."

Zack Christenson, executive producer of "Extension 720 with Milt Rosenburg," said the response was strong.

"I would say this is the biggest response we've ever got from a campaign or a candidate," he said. "This is really unprecedented with the show, the way that people are flooding the calls and our email boxes."

Christenson said the Obama campaign was asked to have someone appear on the show and declined the request.

...

None of the callers could say anything Kurtz had said was untrue they just wanted to shut him up. This tells you something about the Liberal Fascism that surrounds the Obama campaign.

They are not interested in a debate on this issue they want to silence it. That suggest to me that they do not have a good argument. The 1st amendment appears to be a real challenge for the Obama campaign.

Jim Lindgren has much more on the attack on Kurtz including this gem:

...

... If Obama or his campaign had ever denounced Ayers with the fervor that his campaign has now used in denouncing Kurtz, Obama wouldn’t be having trouble on his connection to Ayers....

...

The emphasis was in the original.