Thursday, February 28, 2008

Republican Censorship

Apparently the Republican National Committee along with the John McCain 2008 Campaign has put out the memo to Republicans that they are not to refer to the junior Senator from Illinois by his given middle name because he is sensitive to it.

Truthfully, this galls my constitutional principles like nothing I have experienced. The fact is my great great grandfather joined the Republican Party in 1861 in Winston County, Alabama. That's right, he was a Southern Union Loyalist who stood up against the Confederacy. He paid a price for that political stand, but his price was not as severe as others received at the hands of the Confederates and the Homeguard.

Admittedly, I was raised a Republican and worked to establish a two party system in the state of Alabama in the early 1960s. My efforts were not exactly overwhelmingly received by the Democrats that controlled the Alabama political system. I was called things I will not repeat, but I did not let that stop my mission. If the junior Senator from Illinois who is sensitive to his middle given name, cannot take the heat, well he has a problem.

For the GOP and the McCain 2008 Campaign to tell Republicans what they can call the junior Senator from Illinois who is sensitive to his middle given name, to tell Republicans what they can discuss in the 2008 campaign is an insidious act of censorship that reflects presumptive arrogance. I find such an attitude completely repugnant if not unconstitutional.

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