Something rotten in Obama/Biden Campaign.

The Obama campaign continues to either avoid or intimidate those who ask tough questions.

After putting Joe Biden in the hot seat over his running mate's comments to Joe the Plumber, WFTV in Orlando received a stern letter from the campaign, cancelling further interviews. From the Orlando Sentinel:

West wondered about Sen. Barack Obama's comment, to Joe the Plumber, about spreading the wealth. She quoted Karl Marx and asked how Obama isn't being a Marxist with the "spreading the wealth" comment.

"Are you joking?" said Biden, who is Obama's running mate. "No," West said.

West later asked Biden about his comments that Obama could be tested early on as president. She wondered if the Delaware senator was saying America's days as the world's leading power were over.

"I don't know who's writing your questions," Biden shot back.

Biden so disliked West's line of questioning that the Obama campaign canceled a WFTV interview with Jill Biden, the candidate's wife.

"This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election," wrote Laura K. McGinnis, Central Florida communications director for the Obama campaign.


Read the entire column here.

Meanwhile, former Marine Jessica Hughes gets harrassed by people claiming to be secret service, after she gives a campaign worker a frank opinion of Obama's politics. From WorldNetDaily:

Jessica Hughes of Lufkin, Texas, former Marine, mother of three, answered her cell phone in the car, coming home from the emergency room. Her 9-year-old had suffered a mild concussion, but was OK.

The caller was a female Obama volunteer who asked if Jessica would support Obama for president.

Jessica replied, "No, I don't support him. Your guy is a socialist who voted four times in the state Senate
to let little babies die in hospital closets; I think you should find something better to do with your time." Then Jessica hung up.

The next day, a man and a woman in suits showed up at the door of her home, identifying themselves as members of the Secret Service.

The Secret Service agents stated that the Obama campaign had complained of a death threat. They had quoted Jessica as saying, "I will never support Obama, and he will wind up dead on a hospital floor."

Jessica's husband had heard Jessica's side of the original phone call and verified the actual quote. To which the female agent replied, "Oh? Well why would she (the Obama volunteer) make that up?"

Jessica replied that the Obama volunteer was probably unhappy about what Jessica had said about her candidate. The female agent then said "That's right, you were rude!"

The male agent then displayed a file with Jessica's full name prominently printed on it and asked her how she felt about Obama. At this point, the former Marine told the agent "in no uncertain terms" (as she later recounted) that this was America and that the last time she checked, she was allowed to think whatever she wanted without being questioned by the Secret Service. And was being "rude" a federal crime now too?

The agents then admitted they had no tape of the conversation, just the quote from the Obama campaign.

Responding to Jessica's questions, the agents would not identify themselves by name, nor reveal the name of the Obama volunteer who had made the complaint. The agents did indicate that Jessica was not in a court of law yet, and that they were trying to not embarrass her "by going to all her family and neighbors."

To these implied threats, Jessica invited the agents to speak to whomever they wanted, and stated she would happily go to court since she had done nothing wrong.

Jessica asked the agents, "Look, someone calls me unsolicited on my cell phone to ask me to support their candidate, and I can't tell them why I don't?"

The Secret Service left Jessica that day, but she could not get the "visit" out of her mind.

Jessica wrote later, "The fact that the volunteer lied, the fact that the Secret Service came to my house to question me about my thoughts and feelings and threaten to embarrass me to my neighbors and go to court if I didn't cooperate is not the tragedy here.

"Because that girl on the phone doesn't have the pull to send the Secret Service to my home. Someone high in the ranks of a campaign working for a man who may be the next President of the United States of America felt comfortable bringing the force of the Federal Government
to bear on a private citizen on nothing but the word of a partisan volunteer."



The fact that these "secret service" agents refused to identify themselves is very fishy to me.

Read the rest of the article here.

And then there is the campaign's response to WGN radio's discussions of Bill Ayers and its tactics when dealing with other outlets for conservative opinions.

Now, I expect politicians on both sides to avoid some questions. But childish pouting is ridiculous, harassing radio stations is silly, and using the secret service (if that's what these besuited individuals really were) to intimidate voters is positively totalitarian.

If the Obama campaign wants us to believe that he is even half the leader they make him out to be, he should be taking on his opponents in open dialogue, instead of shutting them up.

Can you imagine the media frenzy if the McCain campaign engaged in such behavior?

Yes, that's the change we need.


Tips of the schoolmarm ruler to: Christina and "Pertinacious Papist".