You may recall that recently, the Obama campaign worked directly with democratic party elected officials in the state of Missouri; engaging prosecutors and county sheriffs, to intimidate local media outlets, and prevent them from taking advertising criticizing Barack Obama.
Governor Blunt delivered a scathing rebuke of this blatant ethical misconduct (and violation of at least federal election regulations, if not federal law):
Governor Blunt, who has decided not to seek re-election; has been campaigning in Missouri, and across the country, for gun rights, and for John McCain.
Gov. Blunt Statement on Obama Campaign’s
Abusive Use of Missouri Law Enforcement
JEFFERSON CITY - Gov. Matt Blunt today issued the following statement on news reports that have exposed plans by U.S. Senator Barack Obama to use Missouri law enforcement to threaten and intimidate his critics.
“St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch, St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer, and Obama and the leader of his Missouri campaign Senator Claire McCaskill have attached the stench of police state tactics to the Obama-Biden campaign.
“What Senator Obama and his helpers are doing is scandalous beyond words, the party that claims to be the party of Thomas Jefferson is abusing the justice system and offices of public trust to silence political criticism with threats of prosecution and criminal punishment.
“This abuse of the law for intimidation insults the most sacred principles and ideals of Jefferson. I can think of nothing more offensive to Jefferson’s thinking than using the power of the state to deprive Americans of their civil rights. The only conceivable purpose of Messrs. McCulloch, Obama and the others is to frighten people away from expressing themselves, to chill free and open debate, to suppress support and donations to conservative organizations targeted by this anti-civil rights, to strangle criticism of Mr. Obama, to suppress ads about his support of higher taxes, and to choke out criticism on television, radio, the Internet, blogs, e-mail and daily conversation about the election.
“Barack Obama needs to grow up. Leftist blogs and others in the press constantly say false things about me and my family. Usually, we ignore false and scurrilous accusations because the purveyors have no credibility. When necessary, we refute them. Enlisting Missouri law enforcement to intimidate people and kill free debate is reminiscent of the Sedition Acts - not a free society.”
On the call with me were the organizers, Bryan Pick and John Henke from QandO.net, Jonathan Blank of the Cato Institute, Nicky Fellenzer from The Liberty Zone, Dave Kopel of the Independence Institute and DaveKopel.com, David Codrea of The War On Guns, JR of A Keyboard and a .45, Sebastian of Snowflakes in Hell, Cam Edwards of NRA News and the Cam and Company radio show, Bitter of The Bitchgirls, Dustin of Dustins Gun Blog, John Donovan of The Donovan, and Caleb of Call me Ahab.
It has been agreed that we can release the full audio of our conference call with the governor. I've put it up here:
Sorry, I cant get the embeddable streaming widget to work. Here's a link to the full file, and an embedded player that works, at archive.org.
Gunblogger conference call with Missouri Governor Matt Blunt
I have edited nothing from Governor Blunts comments; only the introductions and some chat between my fellow bloggers at the beginning and end of the call.
If time permits, I will post a transcript later.
