Rush asks Obama for a weasel-free answer

Rush Limbaugh’s WSJ op-ed asks Obama to rule out all forms of content-monitoring and control on radio. 

I have a straightforward question, which I hope you will answer in a straightforward way: Is it your intention to censor talk radio through a variety of contrivances, such as “local content,” “diversity of ownership,” and “public interest” rules — all of which are designed to appeal to populist sentiments but, as you know, are the death knell of talk radio and the AM band?

Limbaugh reminds the President that the primary purpose of the First Amendment is to prevent the government from restricting critical political speech.

The fact that the federal government issues broadcast licenses, the original purpose of which was to regulate radio signals, ought not become an excuse to destroy one of the most accessible and popular marketplaces of expression. The AM broadcast spectrum cannot honestly be considered a “scarce” resource.

Will Obama answer Rush? Probably not.

Will a reporter ask him at his next press conference? Good luck with that.

Obama, at least, denies he wants to reintroduce the Fairness Doctrine

At least we have some good news, that on the eve of a Rush Limbaugh op-ed on the FedDoc, an Obama spokesman suddenly discovered some clarity within the administration and said that Obama will stand by his campaign rhetoric on the issue.

That’s good as far as it goes, but there are a few problems:

1. Obama’s campaign promises have a habit of expiring.
2. Obama does not run his own party, Nancy does.
3. Acorn is not putting down its guns.
4. It will probably come under a different brand name anyway.
5. He may be saving his ammunition for the Internet.

At least one Democrat is against the Fairness Doctrine

Self-described liberal Democrat Camille Paglia complains that her party has betrayed its soul by thinking it can monitor and control the ideological content of the mass media.

Good for her, but where are the other “liberal” defenders of free speech?

H/T: Instapundit

Fairness Doctrine is coming sooner than anyone thought

Obama’s two main spokesmen, David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs, have both refused to put to rest rumors that the administration is planning to reintroduce the Fairness Doctrine. With the country facing Obama’s promised economic catastrophe, one might have thought it in Obama’s interest to put this “distraction” behind him and rule it out once and for all. 

My guess is that the passage of the spending bill last week has given Obama a sense of invincibility, even though he may realize it won’t last long. He needs to get his censorship agenda passed quickly, before the deleterious effects of last week’s bill start to become apparent to too many people.

The rationale will be that conservative radio talkers are undermining the administration’s efforts at repairing the nation and helping us all work together, so they need to be held accountable by forcing them to present the other side. Of course, the real outcome will be the silencing of such criticism because radio listeners have repeated shown they’d rather listen to Australian polka music than liberal talkers.

From the illustrated Road to Serfdom

One-way accountability

Debbie Stabenow, a Democratic senator from Michigan, is on record as advocated the revival of the Fairness Doctrine, but note how the perspective is remarkably undemocratic.

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.

Who is accountable to whom in this picture? The people, who express themselves through radio and television, will be accountable to the government for what they believe and say. I’m not sure that’s what the founders had in mind when they demanded that Congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech and the press.

Lighting the fuse on the Fairness Bomb

FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell has reminded Democrats that their Fairness Doctrine gambit may backfire and see them lose all existing leverage over radio and television programming. 

In a string of media cases stretching back over more than 20 years, various judges on the D.C. Circuit – both Democratic and Republican appointees – have suggested that it is time for the Supreme Court to rethink the concept of spectrum scarcity as a justification for limiting broadcasters’ First Amendment rights. A revived Doctrine would provide a big, bright bulls-eye for those who wish to make that happen. That development would have implications far beyond the Doctrine itself. Much of our content regulation of broadcasters – including most of the FCC’s existing localism rules and the regulations requiring three hours a week of children’s programming – rest on the spectrum scarcity rationale. If that rationale is invalidated, serious legal challenges to all those other content rules may follow.

Although that’s the most optimistic perspective I’ve heard on the Fairness Doctrine for a while, it is still probably foolish to count on the Supreme Court protecting free speech. Remember that George W. Bush’s squishy rationale for signing campaign finance reform was that he was counting on the court to bail him out and invalidate the whole thing on constitutional grounds. Said Bush at the time:

The bill does have flaws. Certain provisions present serious constitutional concerns. In particular, H.R. 2356 goes farther than I originally proposed by preventing all individuals, not just unions and corporations, from making donations to political parties in connection with Federal elections. I believe individual freedom to participate in elections should be expanded, not diminished; and when individual freedoms are restricted, questions arise under the First Amendment.

The court didn’t agree, and now we’re stuck with censored election speech.

McDowell also included this warning:

Certain legal commentators have suggested that a new corollary of the Doctrine should be fashioned for the Internet, on the theory that web surfers should be exposed to topics and views that they have not chosen for themselves.

As traditional media lose audience and relevance, politicians will need to exercise a lot of self control to keep their hands off the Internet. I don’t think they’ll be able to do it.

A petition against free speech?

Democratic congressfolk have launched a petition against Rush Limbaugh for his statement that he hopes that Obama fails to get his policies implemented.

This is from politicians who somehow persist in calling themselves liberals. In free societies, if you don’t like what someone is saying, you can just stop listening. What business is it of government to approve or condemn what free citizens say, especially when those same politicians threaten to censor radio with a reimposition of the fairness doctrine?

Like they spent the last eight years rooting for W. to succeed.

UPDATE

From Instapundit:

Fairness Doctrine punishes honesty

Selwyn Duke at American Thinker points out that a revived Fairness Doctrine only punished communicators who are honest about their beliefs. After all, who’s to label the various sides of the debate if not the participants themselves? If you don’t label yourself as biased, you need no antidote.

The dirty little secret behind the Fairness Doctrine is that it punishes the honest. Think about it: Radio hosts are the talkers; they wear their banners openly as they proclaim who and what they are. Sure, they may be brash and hyperbolic, loud and oft-sardonic, but there is no pretense, little guile, and you know what they want you to believe. You know what they’re sellin’ and if you’re buyin’.

The mainstream media, however, is a shill. Oh, not shills working with talk radio, of course, as their talkers are entities such as MoveOn.org and Media Matters, but they are shills nonetheless. They masquerade as impartial purveyors of information, almost-automatons who, like Joe Friday, are just interested in the facts, ma’am. They flutter their eyes and read their Teleprompters, and we are to believe God graced them with a singular ability to render facts uncolored by personal perspective.