Neckcarjim's Blog

The Obama campaign has had to deal with a little hiccup in the days leading to his acceptance speech in Denver. The American Issues Project, a nonprofit group, created an ad linking Barack Obama to Bill Ayers. The timing could not be more perfect considering the current effort to deny access to files that would detail Obama and Ayers relationship on the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.

Moving right along ... so this ad ran on about 150 local stations, and the disciples of the Chosen One have thrown a fit. So has the Obama campaign. In fact, Obama launched his own response ad. Fine. But the Obama campaign also tried to block the ads from being aired by warning station managers and asking the Justice Department to intervene. The Justice Department? The campaign also plans to go after the station's advertisers in order to pressure the stations that continue to air the Obama-Ayers commercial.

The Obama camp has now sent, not one, but two letters to the Justice Department, directly attacking the man who funded the ad, Harold Simmons. Simmons also happens to be one of the main funders of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Apparently this is Obama's version of not being "Swiftboated." The letter, calling the group's actions "patently illegal" for using footage of an Ayers documentary, reads:

"We reiterate our request that the Department of Justice fulfill its commitment to take prompt action to investigate and to prosecute the American issues Project, and we further request that the Department of Justice investigate and prosecute Howard (sic) Simmons for a knowing and willful violation of the individual aggregate contribution limits." Persecute him!

Here's the ad so you can judge for yourself.

Now might be a good time to remind you how Obama won his first run for the Illinois State Senate. He didn't win by convincing the voters that he was the better candidate. He won by sending workers to the elections office to pour over petitions until he managed to get his opposition removed from the ballot. Now he's trying to use the U.S. legal system to keep people from running perfectly legitimate advertisements opposing his candidacy. There's really not much evidence that Obama is a fan of the electoral process. He would rather use a legal process to gain power.