As a follow-up to the story "St Louis threatens to prosecute false speech against Sen Obama, the Governor of Missouri has made the following statement:

“St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch, St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer

Joyce, Jefferson County Sheriff Glenn Boyer, and Obama and the leader of his Missouri campaign

Senator Claire McCaskill have attached the stench of police state tactics to the Obama-Biden

campaign.

“What Senator Obama and his helpers are doing is scandalous beyond words, the party that claims

to be the party of Thomas Jefferson is abusing the justice system and offices of public trust

to silence political criticism with threats of prosecution and criminal punishment.

“This abuse of the law for intimidation insults the most sacred principles and ideals of

Jefferson. I can think of nothing more offensive to Jefferson’s thinking than using the power

of the state to deprive Americans of their civil rights.  The only conceivable purpose of

Messrs. McCulloch, Obama and the others is to frighten people away from expressing themselves,

to chill free and open debate, to suppress support and donations to conservative organizations

targeted by this anti-civil rights, to strangle criticism of Mr. Obama, to suppress ads about

his support of higher taxes, and to choke out criticism on television, radio, the Internet,

blogs, e-mail and daily conversation about the election.

“Barack Obama needs to grow up. Leftist blogs and others in the press constantly say false

things about me and my family.  Usually, we ignore false and scurrilous accusations because the

purveyors have no credibility.  When necessary, we refute them. Enlisting Missouri law

enforcement to intimidate people and kill free debate is reminiscent of the Sedition Acts - not

a free society.”

It's about time, these folks were called on these media attacks.  The Governor of Missouri taking this step is a bold move and was needed.  In this case, I believe the Federal Justice department involvement is required and would go a long way in quelling many of these personal attacks by persons acting in their official capacity.  Of course, what would mean a lot more and make a much larger impact on the voters would be if Senator Barack Obama were to publically denounce these attacks in no uncertain terms and let it be known that there was no room in his campaign for these tactics.

However; given the events of the 22nd of September, when certain smears against Gov Palin were tracked just a little too close to Sen Obamas camp, any action of this nature is doubtful.