When you consider the insane charges made against President Bush and the right in recent years, you might be tempted to brush off my prediction. Remember all those folks complaining that their speech — mostly against the Iraq war — was being “chilled” merely because people dared to criticize them? Then there are those who wave signs, hold rallies, march through the streets by the thousands, complaining of how “Bushitler” is squashing dissent. Yet they go home at the end of the day when, if what they said were true, they’d be going to jail. In fact, I haven’t seen a single person arrested merely for politically opposing President Bush. (And please spare me the crap that people arrested for protesting in ways that interfere with the movement of people or vehicles or otherwise for the time, place and manner of their protest are being arrested for the content of their speech.)

Under an Obama presidency, I’m talking about a legal crackdown, and if you think that is a hysterical prediction, I’ve got news for you: Obama’s trying it even before he gets into office. As Amanda Carpenter points out:

Obama’s lawyers are demanding that the Department of Justice to investigate GOP presidential candidate John McCain, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and other Republican politicians because they have drawn attention to ACORN’s fraudulent activities on the campaign trail.

“Agents of the McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee have been striking locally at election officials and boards around the country, sowing confusion and seeking through baseless legal maneuvers to discourage and harass voters and impede their exercise of their right to vote,” Obama for America’s General Counsel Robert Bauer said on a conference call with reporters last week.

Obama’s legal team is specifically taking issue with McCain’s remarks that ACORN’s voter registration fraud “threatens the fabric of our Democracy” and Palin’s assessment that there is a “choice between a candidate who won’t disavow a group committing voter fraud and a leader who won’t tolerate voter fraud.”

Bauer made his request for an investigation in a letter to the DOJ that said McCain and Palin were “sensationalizing this message by repeating it at the state and local level in violation of the law to harass voters and impede their exercise of their rights.”

Former Republican Sens. John Danforth of Missouri and Warren Rudman of New Hampshire are chairing an “Honest and Open Elections Committee” on behalf of the McCain campaign to take action against voter fraud. The GOP has asked Obama to participate, but the Democrats have declined.

Bauer said the committee will impede people from voting rather than safeguarding against voter fraud.

“They get a United States senator who’s the head of the Republican ticket doing everything he can to make it harder for them to be — to vote, making it harder for them to get through the lines quickly, making it harder for them to cast their ballot without impediment, without harassment, without humiliation,” Bauer told reporters.

So, let’s get this straight. Speaking out against voter fraud is really voter suppression, while committing voter fraud is simply a way to get out the vote.

Words fail me.

UPDATE: But words don’t fail the Wall Street Journal today:

If voter fraud would ever be ripe for investigation, this would seem to be the year with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (Acorn) having been caught filing thousands of bogus voter registrations in at least 14 states. Acorn’s history of deceit and the national sweep of today’s scandal demand a federal probe. Safeguarding the integrity of the vote is every bit as important as protecting access to the polls, yet Democrats want Justice to pay attention only to the latter.

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers recently sent two letters to Attorney General Michael Mukasey deploring a news leak that the FBI is investigating Acorn, and warning Justice to focus instead on “voter suppression.” Barack Obama has also joined in this political intimidation, demanding in two letters that Mr. Mukasey appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Justice staff who he claims are engaged in “unlawful coordination” with John McCain’s campaign to pursue “so-called ‘election fraud.’” There is zero evidence that such coordination exists, but it is remarkable that a Presidential nominee would dismiss election fraud as a myth.

The Court, by assuming that responsibility, and the other branches of government, by surrendering it, have permanently damaged the constitutional order. Indeed, Thomas Jefferson believed that a judiciary with final jurisdiction over the constitutionality of presidential and legislative actions “would make the judiciary a despotic branch” of government. 

Today, that despot has a name. It’s Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kennedy rules — thanks to his status as the court’s swing vote — as the true King of America.

In the course of the article, he takes President Bush to task for what he calls “his one act that does approach an impeachable offense” — signing the campaign finance reform bill in 2002 “even though he made it clear he thought the law was unconstitutional.” Rather than veto it, like he should have done President Bush explained, “that the courts will resolve these legitimate legal questions as appropriate under the law.”

I still remember how angry I was that he signed that monstrosity, and it is to my perpetual amazement that the Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality. It’s a perfect illustration of Goldberg’s point.

Hat tip: Ace.