Jerome Corsi, the author of a highly critical book on Barack Obama, was arrested yesterday in Kenya (where Obama is extremely popular) on trumped-up charges. There’s probably only one person in the world with the influence to stand up for Corsi’s right to free speech, and that’s Barack Obama. Yet Obama has remained silent:
A spokesman for Obama said the campaign had no comment on the deportation.
Why not? There’s no political downside whatsoever to standing up for the free-speech rights of your political opponents, especially one whom you’ve already succeeded in marginalizing. It would allow Obama to rehabilitate his tarnished free-speech credentials at very little cost. Even if, for some reason, you don’t want to highlight a free-speech issue, it would be easy enough to respond to a request for comment with a single sentence like “Senator Obama believes strongly in the right to free speech and is disappointed by Kenya’s action.”
So why not? If politically it would be all upside, his refusal must be personal. Obama doesn’t want to stand up for his opponent’s rights, even though it would benefit him politically to do so. For the man who could be President of the United States, that’s worrisome.
Internet Scofflaw 