'[We] Don't Even Bother Raising Our Hands Any More...'

Guy Benson, at National Review Online, has some interesting information about Obama's "press conferences":

As I watched President Bush's final tango with reporters this morning, I
was reminded of how Chicago Sun-Times columnist Carol Marin described President-elect Obama's press conferences thus far:

"As ferociously as we march like villagers with torches against
Blagojevich, we have been, in the true spirit of the Bizarro universe, the polar
opposite with the president-elect. Deferential, eager to please, prepared to
keep a careful distance.
The Obama news conferences tell that story, making
one yearn for the return of the always-irritating Sam Donaldson to awaken the
slumbering press to the notion that decorum isn't all it's cracked up to
be.

The press corps, most of us, don't even bother raising our hands any
more to ask questions because Obama always has before him a list of
correspondents who've been advised they will be called upon that day."

Troubling indeed.

Also posted at Unfair Doctrine.

'[We] Don't Even Bother Raising Our Hands Any More...'

Guy Benson, at National Review Online, has some interesting information about Obama's "press conferences":

As I watched President Bush's final tango with reporters this morning, I
was reminded of how Chicago Sun-Times columnist Carol Marin described President-elect Obama's press conferences thus far:

"As ferociously as we march like villagers with torches against
Blagojevich, we have been, in the true spirit of the Bizarro universe, the polar
opposite with the president-elect. Deferential, eager to please, prepared to
keep a careful distance.
The Obama news conferences tell that story, making
one yearn for the return of the always-irritating Sam Donaldson to awaken the
slumbering press to the notion that decorum isn't all it's cracked up to
be.

The press corps, most of us, don't even bother raising our hands any
more to ask questions because Obama always has before him a list of
correspondents who've been advised they will be called upon that day."

Troubling indeed.

Also posted at Unfair Doctrine.

Julius Genachowski to head FCC

News reports say that Obama has selected his former Harvard Law School classmate Julius Genachowski to head the FCC.

Here's his bio, according to the Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Genachowski, 46 years old, is a former Harvard Law School classmate of Mr.
Obama. He previously worked at the FCC during the Clinton administration. More
recently, he co-founded LaunchBox Digital, a Washington, D.C.-based venture
capital firm. He worked at Barry Diller's IAC/InterActive Corp. in various
executive positions for eight years after leaving the FCC.

Curiously, I can't seem to find anything that indicates his position on the "Fairness Doctrine." Apparently, I'm not the only one:

Interesting. According to a Google News search, none of the articles on Julius
Genachowski, Obama's pick to head the Federal Communications Commission, mention
the Fairness Doctrine. The issue has been mentioned in the online comments
section underneath several news stories, but no one on the FCC or Obama
administration beat has had Genachowski's position regarding that
issue on their radar.

Also posted at Unfair Doctrine.

Dude . . . . Not cool.

Protester Calls for Jews to 'Go Back to the Oven' at Anti-Israel Demonstration.

A very sad story . . . and a very sad reaction

CNN's Ruben Navarrette, Jr. discusses a terrible story about a group of teenage boys in Patchougue, NY, who allegedly decided to go "beaner jumping."

The bullies found 37-year-old Marcello Lucero, who was attacked, beaten and stabbed to death. The alleged assailants include Jeffrey Conroy, Jordan Dasch, Anthony Hartford, Nicholas Hausch, Jose Pacheco, and Kevin Shea, all 17, and Christopher Overton, 16.

As the person who authorities allege stabbed Lucero, Conroy is charged with first-degree manslaughter as a hate crime. The others are charged with first-degree gang assault.

According to Suffolk County Police Commissioner Richard Dormer, all seven "admitted their involvement ... in this crime." They pleaded not guilty in court. Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Nancy Clifford said the suspects wanted to "find some Mexicans to ---- up."

Now, this is inexplicably, undeniably a terrible story. But Mr. Navarrette doesn't really blame the boys. Nor does he blame a culture that glamorized violence and thuggish behavior. Nor does he venture into their family situation or gang associations or psychiatric medications. No, Mr. Navarrette strongly implies that the cause of this is the immigration debate.

Nor should we tolerate an immigration debate that turned anti-Hispanic and that some now blame for incidents like such as this.

In 2006, the last year for which statistics are available, Hispanics were -- according to the FBI -- the No. 1 victim of hate crimes motivated by ethnicity or national origin, representing 62.8 percent of the victims of such crimes.

When tragedy strikes, there are always those who look for someone to blame. In Suffolk County, local activists are blaming public officials who have crusaded against illegal immigration to score political points with their constituents.

The anti-immigrant atmosphere was something even the presidential candidates talked about. Earlier this year, Barack Obama pointed to comments by radio and television hosts critical of immigration. "A certain segment has basically been feeding a kind of xenophobia," he told supporters at a Palm Beach, Florida, fundraiser, tying that sentiment to an increase in hate crimes against Hispanics.

In an interview just before the election, Sen. John McCain told me that there have always been those who stoke fears that American culture and the English language are on their way out.

Do you hear that? "Nor should we tolerate the immigration debate . . ." A discussion of the laws of country, and whether or how they should be enforced, is simply not tolerable if it may carry the blame for "hate."

I would almost guarantee that these teenage thugs had virtually no real awareness of the debate that has gone on in this country about illegal aliens. Their use of the word "beaner," in fact, is one that I would bet that they picked up from Carlos Mencia on Comedy Central. They were simply looking for some way to take their aggression out, thought up a good excuse, and Marcello Lucero, sadly, was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It's things like this that lead to censorship and all sorts of other freedom erosion's, folks. People that think that we must change what we "tolerate," for the good of society. Better to just let the government handle it; if we plebeians discuss it, well, someone could get hurt.

Here's an example of how freedom of speech should work

Some idiot in West Hollywood is, I'm sure, quite proud of his Halloween display, which includes a mannequin dressed as Sarah Palin hanging from a noose, and a mannequin dressed as John McCain in a flaming chimney. He calls it "art" and "within the spirit of Halloween."

I don't think that this is funny. I don't think that this is decent, moral, creative, thought-provoking, clever, or in any way helpful to our national discourse. I don't think that it is art. And I don't think that you ought to give a rat's ass what I think.

The fact is, while I have seen several commentators denounce this as twisted or nonsensical, I am happy to say that I am yet to see anyone call for any action to be taken other than denouncement. Freedom of speech includes the freedom to say what others don't like; and I'll support this moron's right to say what I don't like.

Just ask yourself- would it go the same way if the "artist" had been a Republican supporter?

How Dare You Ask a Difficult Question!

So, some local reporter in Orlando had the audacity to ask Joe Biden some fairly pushy questions the other day. (You can see the full video, as well as links to some comments, at Instapundit.)

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.

The Obama campaign's response: You will get no more access to us. None.

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.

McGinnis said the Biden cancellation was "a result of her husband's experience yesterday during the satellite interview with Barbara West."

Now, I'm sure that the campaign members can interview or not with whomever they choose, and it really wouldn't bother me too much if they just canceled the interview with Jill. After all, she's just a spouse, and, by the standards of this campaign, a pretty boring one at that. (Quick, name one thing about Jill Biden other than the fact that her husband's on the VP ticket . . . yeah, that's what I thought.)

But the blanket "No Interview For You" statement should give us a major pause. True, there's no real "free speech" issue here- the First Amendment was certainly not violated, as I said, the campaign members can interview with whomever they want. But I think that we need to think about how the members of this campaign feel about people who ask tough questions. Will the Obama presidency limit their interviews to only those who they know will be friendly? Will those that dare to step out of line and ask tough questions about administration policy get punished by having their access cut off? Will this cause a chilling effect where journalists dare not risk asking any questions that might offend? Is this the kind of America that you want?

(Also posted at Unfair Doctrine)

Student Suspended for Anti-Obama T-Shirt

Michael P. Stafford, Esq., at The Delaware Employment Law Blog, has an interesting story about a 5th grader who had the audacity to wear a tee-shirt to school with the slogan “Obama is a terrorist’s best friend.”

The free-speech rights of a student is the topic of the day in Colorado, where a 5th grader has been suspended for wearing a tee-shirt emblazoned with the slogan “Obama is a terrorist’s best friend.” The student’s family claims that his First Amendment right to free speech is being trampled. Conspicuously absent from news coverage of this developing story is any detailed description of the tee-shirt causing “substantial disruption” to the school.

Did the school administration make the correct decision in suspending this youngster?
Under well-established Supreme Court precedent, public school administrators may regulate student speech protected by the First Amendment only in three circumstances: (1) when the speech is substantially disruptive; (2) when the speech bears the imprimatur of the school (such as in a school newspaper or yearbook), or; (3) when the speech is lewd or plainly offensive. In particular, under Tinker v. Des Moines, 393 U.S. 503 (1969), student speech may be regulated only if the school has a well-founded expectation that the speech will cause substantial disruption of the school’s operations or interference with the rights of others. The expectation of disruption must be a specific and significant fear of disruption, not just some remote apprehension of disturbance. In this regard, speech is not disruptive merely because it causes offense or hurt feelings in listeners.

Moreover, any regulation of student speech must also be “content neutral.” In Tinker, which involved students wearing black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam war, the Supreme Court observed that the school had singled out the anti-war black armbands for prohibition but had not forbidden other controversial or political symbols. As many courts have noted in a variety of contexts, restrictions on speech because of its message or content are presumed to be unconstitutional.

I think that Mr. Stafford is just a little bit off on his interpretation here, because he leaves off any discussion of last year’s Moorse v. Frederick (aka, the “bong hits 4 Jesus case”), where the US Supreme Court muddied the waters a little bit on the Tinker test that Stafford cites. (The Court found that the student’s rights were not violated when he was punished for waving a banner on the sidelines of a parade that the students were watching which read “bong hits 4 Jesus”.) However, the Court in Moorse focused overwhelmingly on the school’s “compeling interest” in discouraging illegal drug use, which the majority interpreted this banner as promoting.

Here, I would say that the school might make a similar argument- in fact, it would probably focus on “hate speech” or something similar. However, does the school have a compeling interest in discouraging discussion about the associations of prominant political figures? I think not.

(Also published at Unfair Doctrine)

“I asked a question. When you can’t ask a question to your leaders anymore, that gets scary. That bothers me.” — Joe Wurzelbacher

There's a really, really important new blog out there tracking threats to our freedom of speech, a topic I've become increasingly concerned about of late. http://www.unfairdoctrine.org/

More Obama Camp Attempts to Shut Down Dissent

Here. Note that his side was offered the chance to respond, and refused.

What will become of the First Amendment under an Obama Administration?

Obama and Free Speach

I don’t know this paper very well, so maybe this is off, but it’s certainly worth considering. Apparently an independent group developed a television ad about Obama’s relationship with weather underground bomber Bill Ayres, who has a history of bombing government buildings and a few years ago stated that he was not the least bit sorry and feels that they did not do enough.

According to the DC Examiner:

Obama’s campaign has encouraged supporters to flood television stations with
protests whenever they see the ad. Nothing wrong with that, but the other thrust
of the Obama response was to ask the Justice Department to intervene to stop
further airing of the ad. That’s where Obama crossed the line and raised a
question of fundamental importance — does he or does he not believe the First
Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech?

Now, if the information was libelous, I could see trying to get the law involved, but there is no real indication of this, but that doesn't appear to be the case.

The Obama campaign describes the ad as “false, despicable and outrageous,”
according to The Associated Press. If the ad is false, the Obama campaign
should have no trouble refuting it, which would likely be sufficient to
persuade stations to decline the ad. Yet we’ve seen no such
refutation.

If it is false, he should state what is false about it. But he has not, leading me to believe that there is nothing demonstrably false stated in this ad.

I want Barack Obama to be a good candidate, I really do. This is not a sport where one side benefits if the other screws up, this is a real decision about who will make vital decisions that will affect the entire world. Things like this scare me.