Is the Obama campaign sending the law after critics?

September 25, 10:34 PMCivil Liberties ExaminerJ.D. Tuccille

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Have I gone insane, or is KMOV in St. Louis, Missouri, actually reporting that "Senator Barack Obama's presidential campaign is asking Missouri law enforcement to target anyone who lies or runs a misleading television ad during the presidential campaign"?

The report goes on to say that "prosecutors and sheriffs from across Missouri are joining something called the Barack Obama truth squad."

A video of the news broadcast can be found here.

Look, politicians are all about lies. It may be annoying (I find it entertaining), but that's for their opponents and good-government groups to counter -- not law enforcement. That's especially true since whether or not criticism is "misleading" is open to debate. What's being said may be simply a different interpretation, a bit of spin -- or a better version of the truth than candidates and  their friends like.

Even if the officeholders joining the "truth squad" are nominally stepping out of their official roles in order to put on their (political) party hats and play politics, it's inappropriate. They wield too much power to use it to wag their fingers at people who say un-nice things about political hopefuls. Prosecutors and sheriffs are, after all, normally thought of as people with the clout to put their targets behind bars.

Somebody, please drop me a note to tell me that the station has it all wrong.

By the way, if the report is accurate, it fits all too well with the legal threats the Democratic candidate's campaign is leveling against TV stations that run NRA ads critical of Barack Obama. John Lott, a noted economist and firearms scholar, has copies of the Obama campaign's cease-and-desist letters on his Website. He also defends the content of the ads (emphasizing the debatable nature of "misleading.")