That Didn't Take Long

Two weeks into the Obama administration and there are calls to reinstitute the unFairness Doctrine.

SENATOR DEBBIE STABENOW (D-MI): I think it’s absolutely time to pass a standard. Now, whether it’s called the Fairness Standard, whether it’s called something else — I absolutely think it’s time to be bringing accountability to the airwaves. I mean, our new president has talked rightly about accountability and transparency. You know, that we all have to step up and be responsible. And, I think in this case, there needs to be some accountability and standards put in place.

Conservative radio hosts warned throughout the campaign season that electing Obama could cause the reimposition of the oppressive and anti-First Amendment unFairness Doctrine.

There's little doubt that the Supreme Court would find such a regulation as an unconstitutional repression of free speech. What was once a way to ensure that radio stations were not megaphones for one or two voices is now a threat to the freest speech available to most people (and the only one dominated by conservatives). With digital and satellite radio, there are literally hundreds of voices to choose from, rather than a handful as late as the 1980s.

But this doesn't mean liberals like free speech on the radio, especially when Barack Obama is pitching a hissy fit because his "stimulus" package is going down in flames. So much for "bipartisanship." For Democrats, bipartisanship means doing it their way and if you don't, we're gonna punish you.

Silencing Talk Radio

It's no secret that liberals want to silence talk radio. They can't compete, so they want to eliminate the competition.

With the election of Barack Obama, reimposition of the unFairness Doctrine is a top Democrat priority. And no wonder; talk radio allows conservatives to have an active voice in the arena of ideas. Given that most journalists are liberal and many news outlets are abandoning objectivity (see their incuriosity about Barack Obama, for instance), talk radio and Fox News Channel (and some blogs) are the only conservative outlets that spread the information liberals don't want you to know.

There's little doubt that the Supreme Court would strike down the Fairness Doctrine as an improper restriction on free speech, but litigating this case would take time (Dick Morris says two years), and by that time, talk radio would be dead. A Pyrrhic victory.

Smear merchants like Media Matters spend hours documenting "errors" and "slights" they perceive on talk radio. If you go to the link, you'll discover just how outrageous their claims are. If Media Matters actually cared about sexism, they would have prominent articles about the outrageous smears and slams by idiots like Keith Olbermann and Andrew Sullivan. Instead, MM is only concerned with things conservatives say. Liberal lies get a pass.

But then, to liberals, truth is lying and lying is truth. Welcome to Newspeak.

Fairness Doctrine: Schumer Compares Talk Radio to Pornography

I'm not sure Chuck Schumer has ever studied First Amendment law. If he had, I doubt he would have compared talk radio to pornography.

“The very same people who don’t want the Fairness Doctrine want the FCC [Federal Communications Commission] to limit pornography on the air. I am for that… But you can’t say government hands off in one area to a commercial enterprise but you are allowed to intervene in another. That’s not consistent.”

The difference is that pornography is not protected speech. Period. But political speech and commercial speech have some First Amendment protection. Schumer's contempt for the marketplace of ideas is deplorable.

Liberals and Free Speech

What happens when conservatives use the First Amendment in New York? Why, liberals hail them as examples of the greatness of our country! Well, not quite.



There are multiple examples of both the Obama campaign directly and its surrogates indirectly trying to prevent free speech they dislike in this election cycle. How much more free speech will be gone when Obama reimposes the Fairness Doctrine?

Unfairness Doctrine and the Internet

I was wondering when someone would get around to pondering the effects of the Fairness Doctrine on the internet. Apparently, FCC members have.

FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell raised that as a possibility after talking with bloggers at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. McDowell spoke about a recent FCC vote to bar Comcast from engaging in certain Internet practices – expanding the federal agency’s oversight of Internet networks.

The commissioner, a 2006 President Bush appointee, told the Business & Media Institute the Fairness Doctrine could be intertwined with the net neutrality battle. The result might end with the government regulating content on the Web, he warned. McDowell, who was against reprimanding Comcast, said the net neutrality effort could win the support of “a few isolated conservatives” who may not fully realize the long-term effects of government regulation.

“I think the fear is that somehow large corporations will censor their content, their points of view, right,” McDowell said. “I think the bigger concern for them should be if you have government dictating content policy, which by the way would have a big First Amendment problem.”

The big problem with the Fairness Doctrine is that the government shouldn't be in the business of telling Americans what they can and can't read, listen to, or watch, provided there are safeguards for minors. It's not about whether someone's speech is offensive or not; it's about allowing people to express themselves without fear of government oppression. You don't have to like someone else's speech to appreciate that squelching speech you dislike will inevitably lead to squelching speech you do like.

More Reasons to Vote Against Obama: The Fairness Doctrine

Barack Obama supporters claim that Obama's associations with unrepentant terrorists, radicals, crooks and racists don't matter. Jeromy Brown has argued that there's no evidence that any of these people have influenced Obama's political philosophies. Of course, the fact that Obama has been in office only slightly longer than I have (which is never) doesn't seem to bother the Obamaniacs.

Still, I accept that when someone has the most liberal voting record in the Senate that that person probably supports a lot of liberal ideas, including the Fairness Doctrine. Indeed, liberals love the un-Fairness Doctrine and spend loads of time talking about how unfair competition is.

Led by a Muslim Democrat, members of the Federal Communications Commission, and Bill Moyers, Phil Donahue, and Dan Rather, a well-funded campaign to move the media in a more left-wing direction will gather in Minneapolis from June 6-8. Thousands of “progressive” activists are expected to attend...

At the opening session of the conference, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Mn.), the first Muslim elected to Congress, will discuss the “opportunity to wrest control of media access and distribution from the few to the many,” according to the official conference program. This is liberal doublespeak for using the power of the federal government to hand over more media properties to liberals.

However, as the Moyers example suggests, they already have access, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayers, to 350 television stations affiliated with the Public Broadcasting Service. The 860 stations affiliated with National Public Radio are also regarded as reliable outlets for liberal or “progressive” opinion. Pacifica Radio, an openly “progressive” radio network, includes five stations owned by the Pacifica Foundation, one associate station, and 132 affiliates. Pacifica has also received taxpayer funding.

In addition, they have MSNBC, the evening news programs of the three broadcasting networks, and most of the national press.

In Minneapolis, the conference has the support of AM 950, KNTF, “The Voice of Minnesota,” which is a home for Air America Radio, the liberal network that went through bankruptcy and was bailed out by a wealthy liberal family that includes former Democratic politician Mark Green.

The problem, of course, is that more people like listening to Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity than Bill Moyers or discredited Dan Rather. So, like good liberals, if they can't win using the rules, they want to change the rules. If you stupid Americans won't watch and listen to their "enlightened" programs, they'll limit your choice to listen or watch the "wrong" programs.

Which brings us back to Obama and why electing Obama means stifling conservatives.

(I)f Obama captures the White House and gets the opportunity to appoint the FCC chairman, liberals would then have a 3-2 majority capable of bringing back the Fairness Doctrine through administrative action, without the need for congressional approval. A new Fairness Doctrine could be challenged in the courts but the U.S. Supreme Court previously upheld it. In the meantime, as court battles proceed, conservatives could be forced off the air by liberal FCC bureaucrats exercising arbitrary power in the name of fairness.

But, hey, it doesn't matter who Obama hangs with, right?

It's 1984 for Liberals When It Comes to Free Speech

Apparently, Democrats want to continue proving my point about liberals' hatred of free speech. According to The American Spectator,

Rep. Henry Waxman has asked his investigative staff to begin compiling reports on Limbaugh, and fellow radio hosts Sean Hannity and Mark Levin based on transcripts from their shows, and to call in Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin to discuss the so-called "Fairness Doctrine."

"Limbaugh isn't the only one who needs to be made uncomfortable about what he says on the radio," says a House leadership source. "We don't have as big a megaphone as these guys, but this all political, and we'll do what we can to gain the advantage. If we can take them off their game for a while, it will help our folks out there on the campaign trail."

Democrats don't have as big a megaphone? Running the legislative branch of government isn't a big enough megaphone? I can't decide if these guys are just stupid or really don't understand that Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives are equal time (as Rush says).

It would be laughable that Democrats, who control both the House and Senate, feel they aren't as powerful as talk radio if it weren't so sinister. But the fact is, these guys control the legislative branch of government and now want to stifle free speech by legislating it out of existence. We're not talking about protests or advertiser boycotts. If the government decides to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine that really is censorship.

Don't Mistake the Liberal Agenda: Silencing Conservatives

If it wasn't obvious before, liberals hate free speech. Why do I say that? It's the only explanation for why liberals are hellbent on getting Rush Limbaugh off the Armed Forces Radio Network. One of the chief unhinged nuts explains the importance of silencing Rush Limbaugh:

It’s my belief that the conservative movement of the past decade or so was a three headed hydra: Newt, Delay and Rush. Sure, there are others, including Bush’s brain, and Grover Norquist (whom I have sometimes included as the fourth head of the hydra) but those three stood for different things that were hugely important to the success of the movement. Newt was the visionary. Delay was the congressional enforcer. And Rush was the voice, screaming out violent hatred for liberals and Democrats day after day, decade after decade. It took its toll, to the point where we can hardly even stand ourselves.

Newtie’s now irrelevant. Delay is gone. Only Rush remains and he is probably the biggest prize. On a purely practical, hardball political basis, the Democrats should have been working to take him out for years. Now is their chance to turn the Republicans’ patented hissy kabuki back on them and hoist an avowed political enemy with his own poisonous petard at the same time. There are many others who will happily take his place, no doubt about it. But his voice is uniquely associated with the radical wingnuts, and it is an important symbolic message to the country if they can finally make an example of him. (Emphasis mine)

What sort of example? Why, an example of what happens when you cross the liberal cabal. The nutroots accuse a four-star general of betraying our country and these jerks back up a full-page, discounted ad. And when that backfires, they have to raise a stink about a phony flap like the Rush Limbaugh quote to try to take the heat off themselves.

If I didn't know how those supposedly open-minded moonbats think, it might sound a bit hypocritical. But knowing how little respect liberals have for free speech, it's no surprise at all. That's why they constantly cry for banning people they disagree with. Instead of finding a formula that attracts viewers, they call for greater restrictions on speech.

And who can blame them? It's no mystery that conservatives thrive when free ideas are expressed. Liberals, on the other hand, constantly and persistently side with silencing speech they dislike.

Liberalism once had a reputation of supporting the free and open exchange of ideas. But for the last 40 years, liberals have constantly complained that all conflicting ideas must be suppressed, whether those ideas concern religion, speech, protest, education or virtually any other issue.

Rush Limbaugh's success and his huge audience is more than a thorn in the side of the liberal elites. They have to discredit Rush any way they can because their own ideas have been rejected by huge segments of America. It's the same reason the moonbatosphere is hysterical over Fox News when the network audience share dwarfs the only conservative network on the air. They can't win with their ideas, so they must try to silence all opponents.

Rush compares the Wesley Clarks, the nutroots, the Media Matters of the left to Stalinists, and the comparison is apt.

They Believe in Free Speech, Don't They?

Not surprisingly, Senate Democrats have blocked an amendment designed to kill the Fairness Doctrine for good.

Michigan Democrat Carl Levin said that the amendment was improper, as it should have come out of the Commerce committee, and was taking up valuable time the Democrats need to undermine the war in Iraq.

I can buy the argument that the amendment should have come out of the Commerce committee, if, indeed, that's where such legislation belongs. But do the Democrats really need more time to secure defeat for our efforts in Iraq?

Allahpundit at Hot Air contemplates how the Fairness Doctrine fares under a Democrat president. And what if the Fairness Doctrine gets applied to the internet where it would curtail nutroot activity? Stay tuned.

The Dueling Arguments on the Fairness Doctrine

Captain Ed has a nice post on the continuing debate in the Senate on the Fairness Doctrine. The debate shows the difference in the arguments of both sides. Says Ed:

The effort to bring back the Fairness Doctrine is entirely about fear. Durbin and his associates are afraid that they have lost the debate, and they want to shut down the forum rather than acknowledge it. Either that, or Durbin and Barbara Boxer and anyone else who wants the government to dictate the content of political speech think you're too stupid to find differing points of view.

I've always said that liberals like the Fairness Doctrine because they've been unsuccessful in the marketplace. But that's not entirely true; virtually all the networks (with the exception of FOX News) lean to the left. There's NPR on the radio, and the internet is more heavily populated by liberals than conservatives. This isn't to mention the editorial policies of nearly every newspaper in the country. In fact, the only area that conservatives dominate is talk radio. Would the Fairness Doctrine work to force all of these other news sources to be more conservative? I doubt it.

Liberals change the terms when they don't like the argument. That's why they complain about corporate ownership of media (but then rail at government control of same). They hate Rush Limbaugh because he's managed to remain overwhelmingly popular for nearly 20 years regardless of their attacks. His success showed the profitability of other conservative voices on the airwaves and lead to the syndication of other shows.

But the worst part about the liberal desire for the Fairness Doctrine is the way they insult average Americans by implying (and sometimes saying) that Americans are too stupid to find the truth without a government regulation of the airwaves. The truth is, we don't need the Fairness Doctrine precisely because there are so many places one can go for information. We aren't dependent on what we watch on TV or hear on the radio or read in the newspaper. Because of deregulation, we can watch, listen, and read so many more opinions, ideas, and philosophies to help form our opinions. We don't need the government telling us where we can get our information. That's why the Left fears the marketplace of ideas.

We, the People Spoke...and Won

It's been a great week for conservatives, according to Mark Tapscott, and I have to agree.

--The Illegal Immigration Amnesty bill is dead.

--The conservative court campaigned over for the last 25 years has finally come to fruition.

--The un-Fairness Doctrine has been killed for now.

Tapscott explains in fuller detail what these victories mean for conservatism and the GOP.

Readers Know What an "Investigative Report" Is

Once upon a time, when I worked for the local metro daily, I did a stint in Business News as general dog's body, which meant I did everything from the menial (answering phones) to scrolling the wires (for the wire guy), editing pages, and occasionally writing stories.

Business News is the only conservative section of any newspaper, I can assure you. You know all those studies that show some tiny minority of journalists are Republicans? They're almost all located in Business News. I could theorize why that is, but it's not terribly important for this post.

One of the first things I learned when I transferred into Business News was that you had a different type of customer calling to complain. Whereas your typical complaint in Sports was about a missing box score for the Itasca Wampus Cats, and your typical Entertainment caller wanted to know how old Phyllis Diller is (she's 89), people call Business News when they are mad at a business and want an investigative report done about it.

"Readers know what an investigative report is," I was told by one reporter. "They know you'll be dropping a sack of shit on somebody."

Well, the unbiased New York Times is planning to drop a flaming sack on Rupert Murdoch. How do we know it will be a dump job? Well, to start with, they're putting a number of reporters and editors on the "secret" project. Generally, if a story is no big deal, you'll have one or two reporters and maybe one editor devoting some time and attention to it. When you assemble a staff for a project, it's only when they're planning to sling some mud.

Tammy Bruce asked the big question: If the NYT is merely interested in media manipulation, politicking, and malfeasance, when will they do an investigative report on George Soros?

The answer is "never" especially when the "investigation" you launch into is actually nothing more than you doing the bidding of the man you should be investigating--George Soros. Murdoch, as an example, has not declared himself the messiah, he has never publicly declared that he intends to spend his fortune on seating or unseating an American president, nor has he been found guilty of Insider Trading by a government. Funny enough, though, it's not Soros they're interested in, who has done all those things. Gee, I wonder why.

The NYT has indeed launched a massive "investigation" into Rupert Murdoch and News Corp., and one does have to, shall I say, question the timing. Gee, as we launch into presidential campaigns, the Dems try to shut out Fox News from debates and coverage, and now the completely independent, absolutely not an organ for the Soros Gestapo, decides, in today's world or war and terrorism, that the most important person they should spend enormous resources on "investigating" is...Murdoch.

But it certainly has absolutely nothing to do with partisan politics and the desire to shut down a venue that offers a hearing for alternative ideas and voices. Alternative from the leftist status quo, that is. No conflict of interest there as television's coverage of the news continues to eat away at newspaper circulation. Nope, nothing to see here folks except a publicly held company working to undermine what they see as a political/business/philosophical rival.

The voices on the left have risen into a shrieking crescendo over FOX News, talk radio, and conservative speech in general. But take my word for it, nothing makes their blood boil like the wild success of FOX News. It's interesting that liberals run nearly every media outlet in the country but they are determined to silence conservatives who have the audacity to prefer straight or conservative news to the liberal garbage they were forcefed for years. More from Bruce:

Why are the Left and the Dems desperate to silence Fox News? And make no mistake--this is what this is all about. They know they need opposing voices to be silenced if they are to gain power in this nation. They have no hope of doing so as long as talk radio, the internet and the one television channel that allows non-leftist opinion to be heard, operate freely. Whether it be bringing back the so-called "Fairness Doctrine," or public campaigns to marginalize programming and radio hosts, or boycott campaigns to destroy sponsorship, or so-called investigations meant to intimidate and destroy, the goals are all the same--silence opposing viewpoints, silence those who do not pay allegiance to the Soros/Leftist Gestapo.

Hopefully, readers still know what an "investigative report" is.

When They Can't Win Fairly, They Want the Fairness Doctrine

According to this article at The American Spectator, Grandma Pelosi wants to "aggressively pursue" reinstatement of the un-Fairness Doctrine.

The decision to press for re-establishment of the Fairness Doctrine now seems to have developed for two reasons. "First, [Democrats] failed on the radio airwaves with Air America, no one wanted to listen," says a senior adviser to Pelosi. "Conservative radio is a huge threat and political advantage for Republicans and we have had to find a way to limit it. Second, it looks like the Republicans are going to have someone in the presidential race who has access to media in ways our folks don't want, so we want to make sure the GOP has no advantages going into 2008."

That last comment appeared to be a veiled reference to former Sen. Fred Thompson, who appears to be gearing up for a presidential run. Over the past year, he has built a following both over the AM airwaves through the ABC Radio network, as well as through almost daily appearances across cable TV on the TV show Law & Order, where he plays a tough-talking district attorney.

According to another Democrat leadership aide, Pelosi and her team are focused on several targets in the fight, including Rush Limbaugh and the Salem Radio Network. In fact, Kucinich's staff has begun investigating Salem, one of the fastest growing radio networks in the country, which features such popular -- and highly rated -- conservative hosts as Bill Bennett and Michael Medved, and Christian hosts such as Dr. Richard Land.

"They are identifying senior employees, their political activities and their political giving," says a Government Reform committee staffer. "Salem is a big target, but the big one is going to be Limbaugh. We know we can't shut him up, but we want to make life a bit more difficult for him."

The fact is that Democrats can't compete on talk radio so they want to muzzle it. They know there's nothing "fair" about the Fairness Doctrine, and, as I've discussed numerous times (see here, here, and here), it's most likely the Supreme Court would find the Fairness Doctrine unconstitutional.

Not only that, but Democrats know they can't touch Rush Limbaugh. Unlike Don Imus, the Left's latest scalp, Limbaugh works for no one but himself. He owns his show and is a part owner of the group which syndicates his show. On top of this, the most popular radio show in the country is unlikely to be brought low by any attempt by mere Democrats to humble him.

But don't expect that to stop Pelosi and company.

Liberals Aren't Funny

With the introduction of The 1/2 Hour News Hour, we have seen the re-emergence of the meme "Conservatives aren't funny."

I've seen snips of the show, but not a full episode. Reviews were mixed. But everybody on the right was terribly concerned about this "Conservatives aren't funny" tagline. Why?

Conservatives have been funny for 20 years, and the evidence is no farther away than your local radio stations. Rush Limbaugh, Laura Ingraham and Glenn Beck are all (or can be) exceedingly funny at times. In fact, the success of the talk radio format for conservative radio is what has lead to calls for a return to the Fairness Doctrine.

The truth is, liberals can't do talk radio. They do lots of other media well and get their agenda out through TV entertainment, news, music, and movies. But they can't do talk radio.

Unless they want a Fairness Doctrine for liberal views on TV, liberals should reject the un-Fairness Doctrine.