Obama’s “Truth Squad”: prosecutors gone wild?

September 29, 2008

Jennifer Joyce is the Circuit Attorney for the City of Saint Louis, Missouri.  She has an important role as the chief prosecutor in that historic town.  She states it right on her website:

You deserve to live, work and play in a historically rich, culturally fertile and safe city that respects the rights of all people. As the Circuit Attorney for St. Louis City, I take my responsibility as your prosecutor very seriously. I have a fundamental belief as a public law enforcement leader, that I must utilize all of the resources available to me to hold people accountable for their actions.

And, by God, she is going to in that important Presidential bell-weather state.  Now, I don’t use God’s name in vain here.  Joyce herself, joined by fellow Obama supporter and Saint Louis County Circuit Attorney, Bob McCullough, wants to make the religious point here.  They have set out on a mission to hold the McCain campaign “accountable” when it comes to telling the truth in campaign ads, and they want everyone to know that Barack Obama is a Christian and wants to lower taxes for people making less than $250,000 a year.  Here’s what she said in a recent interview (video after):

We want to keep this campaign focused on issues. Missourians don’t want to be distracted by these divisive character attacks.

Well, one would be inclined to think that McCain-supporting Missourians want to keep the issues in center focus as well.  Let’s do a bit of truth-squad work as a service to help Ms. Joyce and Mr. McCullough as they seek accuracy:

  1. Let’s dispense immediately with the whole matter of Obama’s Christian faith. He claims Christ as his Savior, and we’ll just leave the rest to be settled between him and God for now.
  2. Obama proposes to cut taxes for people making less than $250,000 per year. He has been stating this number on interviews and in debates, but I did a site search, and he doesn’t mention it anywhere on his website.
  3. Obama may be avoiding the truth when it comes to raising taxes on people making over $97,500 per year. Obama’s site has a “fact check” refuting Hillary Clinton’s claim during the Democrat primary that he would raise taxes by over $1 trillion by removing the cap on Social Security taxes. Obama’s response–right on his website–is “I have not specified exactly how we would structure [raising the cap on Social Security taxes].”  That would be important information to know so he can come clean on his real plan for individual taxes.  As it stands, this causes some doubt about the truthfulness of his tax cut promise.
  4. Obama has proposed various tax increases for corporations. Who pays corporate taxes? Not the corporations, we all do. Fred Thompson said it best at the Republican Convention regarding corporate taxes, “They tell you they are not going to tax your family. No, they’re just going to tax ‘businesses’! So unless you buy something from a ‘business’, like groceries or clothes or gasoline … or unless you get a paycheck from a big or a small ‘business’, don’t worry … it’s not going to affect you. They say they are not going to take any water out of your side of the bucket, just the ‘other”’side of the bucket! That’s their idea of tax reform.” Say what you want:  this is a tax increase for all of us.

It seems the facts may be a bit more cloudy than Ms. Joyce or Mr. McCullough want to admit.  And there is another problem.  Their formation of an Obama “Truth Squad” violates ethical standards connected with their office.  It is traditional for prosecutors to stay out of the political fray as it relates to other candidates and to keep their political activities within the scope of their own campaigns.  This has always been done to avoid giving the impression that they would use the police powers associated with their office to retaliate against political opponents.

Are these prosecutors attempting to send a message to the people of Saint Louis and the surrounding county that any political speech they disagree with on “factual” grounds will be prosecuted?  Will that implied threat be used against churches who distribute voter guides as well as the McCain campaign?  Without a doubt the threat implied in their “Truth Squad” effort will cause a chilling effect for some in the Saint Louis area which the First Amendment was designed to eliminate.

Ms. Joyce and Mr. McCullough, thanks for respecting the rights of all people.

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Written by Jim Pfaff · Filed Under 2008, Featured, Politics 

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