Barack Obama threatens licenses of stations running NRA ad (National Rifle Association)

The National Rifle Association is running an advertising campaign (their site) highlighting what they say is Barack Obama's "10 Point Plan to 'Change' the Second Amendment". Their various claims involve him wanting to ban handguns, certain types of ammunition, and so forth. Needless to say, the Obama campaign disagrees, and in fact they've gone as far as issue a not-so-veiled threat against the licenses of those radio stations that are running the ad. That might not be objectionable if the ads were issuing outrageous lies, but that doesn't appear to be the case. This is yet another example of BHO having "issues" with the First Amendment, and it should be both a warning sign to his supporters and further motivation to his detractors to make sure that he does not become president.

Regarding the NRA's claims, the Washington Post's "fact checker" Michael Dobbs gives the campaign three "Pinocchios" (link) and FactCheck agrees (link). While I'm not that familiar with the issues involved, somehow I find this post that says the NRA is right to be more persuasive because something I am very familiar with is how Barack Obama tends to lie.

The letter from BHO lead counsel Robert Bauer is in the PDF at this post. For an unknown reason, the language Bauer uses is highly similar to that used by John Petrone II, who was representing another Democratic politician, Michael Arcuri (PDF link). Others using a similar technique were conservative Mike Higgins (link), and a similar threat by Democrat Andy Levin succeeded in Michigan against Comcast (link).

Now, just because others have tried the same trick doesn't mean that the Hope, Change, and a Pony candidate should do it too. Consider this a preview.

Politics · Thu, 09/25/2008 - 20:00 · · Importance: 4