Dispatches from the Culture Wars

I've already criticized the Obama campaign for trying to intimidate TV stations and threaten them with retaliation if they air an ad the campaign says is inaccurate, now let me criticize a similar allegation that is false. The Worldnutdaily and many other conservative sources are claiming that Obama is trying to get prosecutors and sheriffs to prosecute those who make or air such ads.

A team of Obama-supporting prosecutors and sheriffs in Missouri is preparing to pursue legal challenges to any presidential campaign ads deemed to be false or misleading.

KMOV-TV in St. Louis reports District Attorney Robert McCulloch, a past president of the National District Attorneys Association, said that whether the ads could be attributed to an opponent's campaign itself, or another organization, "If they're not going to tell the truth, somebody's got to step up and say, 'That's not the truth. This is the truth.'"

Those two paragraphs do not match up. The first claims that prosecutors are going to bring legal challenges against inaccurate ads but the second only quotes a prosecutor saying that someone needs to respond to the ads and show why they're false. And that, in fact, is the only thing that prosecutors told KMOV-TV. You can watch the video of their report here. The only quotes from the two prosecutors they interview are talking about responding substantively to the claims in ads, not taking any legal action against them.

Jennifer Joyce, a St. Louis circuit attorney, said:

We want to keep this campaign focused on issues. We don't want people to get distracted and Missourians don't want to be distracted by these divisive character attacks. So we're here to respond to any character attacks, to set the record straight.

And here's what Bob McCulloch said:

Whether it is directly attributable to the campaigns or to one of the soft money operations, if they're not gonna tell the truth then somebody's got step up and say "wait a minute, that's not the truth, this is the truth."

There isn't a word in there about "legal challenges." Gateway Pundit exaggerated the claim even more than the Worldnutdaily did:

St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce and St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch are threatening to bring libel charges against those who speak out falsely against Barack Obama.

KMOV aired a story last night, that stated that St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch and St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, both Obama supporters, are threatening to bring criminal libel charges against anyone who levels what turns out to be false criticisms of their chosen candidate for President.

This is a flat out lie. Neither McCulloch nor Joyce said a word about "criminal libel" charges over such ads. There isn't a prosecutor in the land that would bring such a case and they said nothing of the sort. You know why we know this is nonsense? Because as Eugene Volokh noted, Missouri doesn't even have a criminal libel statute. And even the governor of Missouri has thrown a hissy fit over this nonsense.

Jennifer Joyce has explicitly denied these lies:

As a citizen, I believe that elections should be about issues. I also have enormous respect for our First Amendment and freedom of speech. My sole purpose in participating in this initiative is about getting truthful information to the voters. This has never been or never will be about prosecuting people.

Clearly there are those who are attempting to twist the purpose of this initiative for their own benefit. This attack is a great example of how the truth is distorted in campaigns and what we're trying to stand up against.

And what a post about right wing lies be without the Worldnutdaily? They're claiming that the prosecutors are now "backing off" their threats:

Missouri law officials, including public prosecutors, who were reportedly planning to "respond immediately" to any misleading advertisements against Barack Obama if they "might violate Missouri ethics laws," have now backed off the intimidating implications of that report, promising they have no intention of prosecuting anyone.

They aren't backing off anything. They never threatened anyone to begin with. For crying out loud, the Worldnutdaily even quoted McCulloch directly saying that he was only going to "step up and say, 'That's not the truth. This is the truth.'"

Prosecutors are elected officials. There isn't any difference between prosecutors speaking out on behalf of a candidate they support and a congressman doing the same thing. The Obama campaign IS trying to intimidate and threaten TV stations over these ads, but this claim of prosecutors bringing charges over them is nonsense.