The Obama administration pursuit of the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers is akin to McCarthyism at its worst or Richard Nixon’s enemies list, former Solicitor General Theodore Olson has charged.
And it’s all because Charles and David Koch are an attractive punching bag for the left due to their public stances promoting liberty and free enterprise, Olson said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed article.
“How would you feel if aides to the president of the United States singled you out by name for attack, and if you were featured prominently in the president's re-election campaign as an enemy of the people?” Olson asked.
Olson said government attacks on private citizens should be resisted by all. “If a journalist, labor-union leader or community organizer on the left can be targeted today, an academic or business person on the right can be the target tomorrow.
“If we fail to stand up against oppression from one direction, we abdicate the moral authority to challenge it when it comes from another.
“The misuse of government power to damage or demean one's political enemies is abhorrent and the very antithesis of a free society and a government of laws, not men. It is time for the public to ask those engaged in these practices, 'Have you no sense of decency?"