What's this? A reporter doing her job? Scandal!

The enemies of free speech are on the march--Part 13

By Wes Vernon

Horrors! The Barack Obama campaign has encountered a reporter who does not treat its candidate as royalty? What's the matter with this woman? Can't she "go with the flow" and join her colleagues in turning a blind eye to all issues that do not reflect on Obama as the messiah?

The Barbara West story

So Senator Joe Biden — the one-man gaffe machine — looked into the cameras of WFTV in Orlando, Florida — no doubt expecting another reporter might overlook his problem counting to four ("jobs" is a "three-letter word"), or his missing link with 20th Century history (right after the stock market crash of 1929, FDR — not Herbert Hoover — "went on television," not radio).

Instead, what he got was a reporter who asked him questions about the (gasp!) issues that Obama had refused to address.

Like Marxism

"You may recognize this famous quote," said anchorwoman Barbara West. "'From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.' That's from Karl Marx. How is Senator Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?"

For shame! Doesn't this woman know she is to participate in the pro-Obama media choir and serve the senator his ham and cheese on rye — complete with mustard, along with "feel-good" reports on the campaign?

Like someone hit between the eyes with a two-by-four, Senator Biden asked, "Are you joking? Is this a joke?"After giving the standard Obama line about how previous tax cuts amounted to "redistributing the wealth up," the senator said, "It's a ridiculous comparison, with all due respect."

Warning: Obama White House means terrorist attack

Undaunted, West forged ahead with this relevant question: "Now you recently said, 'Mark my word it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama. But what worries many people is your caveat asking them to stand with him because it's not going to be apparent initially that he's right. Are you forewarning Americans that nothing will be done and that America's days as the world's leading power will be over?'"

Now that question — though perhaps more "edgy" that what the Obama-Biden ticket is used to — nonetheless goes to a concern in the minds of many Americans. They really are fearful of Obama's dovish predilections and talk of sitting down with the world's worst thugs, "without pre-conditions. What will he do? Challenge them with a nothing more than drawn feather, while saying something on the order of "Have a care, sir?"

Biden's answer was that every president has been tested early in his first term. That's partly true, but leaves out significant details: Iran — after holding our hostages for 444 days — couldn't release them quickly enough within a few short hours after Ronald Reagan was sworn in. They knew better than to mess around with him.

The terrorists later tested Bill Clinton with the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, and he flunked the test — treating terrorists like common criminals instead of enemies of the United States.

Lots of us want to know: What about this rookie? Is he Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton? And we're afraid of the answer.

"I don't know who's writing your questions," Biden insulted West. (Translation: You see, the "girl" doesn't have the brains to come up with her own questions, notwithstanding her impressive background and years in TV journalism.)

Trying again

"Getting back to the spreading the wealth question," added the Florida anchorwoman, "What do you think of the people who think Barack Obama will want to turn America into a socialist country much like Sweden?"

Biden: "I don't know anybody who thinks that except the far right wing of the Republican Party."

Really?

Senator, there are non-Republicans who "think that" and — in fact — look forward it.

Example 1: The terrorist couple — Bill Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn — who launched Barack Obama's campaign from their living room with a "get to know the candidate" soiree in 1995. They share the Marxist culture of class hatred, and in fact tried to achieve it through violent means.

Example 2: The Democratic Socialists of America, who say on their website that, "we are not a separate party" (from the Democrats, italics added) and that "many of us have been active in the Democratic party" and will continue working "to strengthen the [Democrat] party's left wing, represented by the Congressional Progressive Caucus." Further, that "we will continue to support progressives who have a real chance at winning elections, which usually means left-wing Democrats."

Those words, Senator Biden, come from the far left wing of the Democrat Party — not from the "far right wing of the Republican Party" that you so summarily dismiss. We need not connect the final dot here in trying to determine what the "Democratic Socialists" are talking about when they refer to their alliance with "left-wing Democrats" other than to note the mainstream National Journal has rated Barack Obama as the most liberal (i.e., left-wing) member of the Senate, based on his voting record.

BTW — West is an equal opportunity griller. She also interviewed Senator John McCain, and asked him why his campaign seemed so disorganized and suggested that people looking for leadership in the White House might judge a candidate by his ability to run his own campaign effort.

My own questions

If Barbara West had been allowed more time to pursue her interview with Biden, here are a couple of additional questions that might well have been considered

1 — Senator Biden, security expert Daniel Pipes, a director of the Middle East Forum, has written that Senator Obama — were he not a senator and a presidential candidate — "would fail the standard security process for federal employees" because of his "multiple links to anti-Americans and subversives." Would you care to comment on that? (I.e., Council on American-Islamic Relations — CAIR — unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas-funding trial, to cite one example on Pipes's list that does not even include Ayers and Dohrn.)

2 — Senator Biden, will the Obama campaign join the McCain campaign in demanding the Los Angeles Times release a 2003 tape (which its editors refuse to do) showing Barack Obama heaping praise on Rashid Khalidi, a former spokesman for the late PLO terrorist Yasser Arafat?

Obama campaign retaliates

After the TV interview, the Obama campaign canceled a scheduled Barbara West interview with Biden's wife Jill. "This cancellation is non-negotiable," wrote Laura K. McGinnis, Central Florida Communications Director for the Obama campaign.

Rehearsal for next four years?

You may take that as the tip of the iceberg as to what we can expect from an Obama presidency. Look for a President Obama, backed by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid on Capitol Hill, to work night and day to shut up any reporter who asks probing questions, to say nothing of their plans to shut down conservative talk radio. Their satraps are not satisfied that they dominate the mainstream media. They demand it all.

© Wes Vernon