SILENCING PESKY OPPOSITION

Obamites, take note! Here is a valuable lesson to be learned from the Brits, via Phil Hendren, aka Dizzy.

British Members of Parliament (MPs) have had their troubles of late, in no small measure due to The Telegraph’s recent revelations of widespread improprieties in MPs’ expense accounts. For the first time in 300 years, the Speaker of the House of Commons has resigned, and several other MPs are planning to stand down as well.

Let me say that politicians ought to be monitored closely, so in that, I am with The Telegraph. But perhaps I should also add that that a legislator’s resignation in the wake of revelations of bad behavior is a very good idea (mother Pelosi, brother Frank, childe Barack, clown prince Joey et al, take note!).

Then came trouble. (It always does...) Given the tendency of the media to ratchet up the pressure to insane levels, the situation soon turned into a witch hunt.

Then came more trouble – someone fired back. Nadine Dorries, a Mid Bedfordshire Tory, addressed the witch-hunt atmosphere in the blog portion of her website. Among others, she apparently voiced her concern that the merciless pressure might drive some MPs to suicide (has happened before, actually). She also reportedly alleged that The Telegraph might have a hidden agenda: smear MPs in the traditional parties, driving voters toward the United Kingdom Independent Party (UKIP).

Since Dorries’s website and blog are operated by The Telegraph Group, The Telegraph found it easy to answer MP Dorries’s allegations. They immediately shut down the blog portion of her website, citing their acceptable user policy.

That’s where The Telegraph and I part ways. The idea of shutting up someone who criticizes you is so monumentally stupid, so profoundly reactionary, so totalitarian in nature that anyone who does it is automatically gets entered in the running for my much sought-after annual Pol Pot Prize for Absolutely Progressive Procedures, or PPPAPP. (BTW, the PPPAPP is known the world over as the dictator’s Nobel/Pulitzer.)

But if silencing the opposition is your thing, this is how it’s done. So I say again: Obamites, take note and learn from The Telegraph!