Hugh Hewitt, conservative talk show host on the Salem Radio Network, doesn’t worry too much about the Fairness Doctrine making any sort of comeback. According to him, it simply couldn’t pass Constitutional muster. Yet, there are many conservatives who aren’t quite as assured as Hewitt – especially with the very real possibility of a filibuster-proof Democratic Congress tag-teaming with a White House occupied by the Obama-rama leftocracy.
As Brian Anderson wrote in Monday’s New York Post:
Yes, the Obama campaign said some months back that the candidate doesn't seek to re-impose this regulation … But most Democrats - including party elders Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry and Al Gore - strongly support the idea of mandating "fairness." … Would a President Obama veto a new Fairness Doctrine if Congress enacted one? It's doubtful.
For those who dismiss this threat to freedom of the airwaves as unlikely, consider how the politics of "fairness" might play out with the public. A Rasmussen poll last summer found that fully 47 percent of respondents backed the idea of requiring radio and television stations to offer "equal amounts of conservative and liberal political commentary," with 39 percent opposed.
For years, the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine has been bandied about primarily by spoiled-sport whiny leftists who can’t figure out why they can’t crack the talk radio genre. However, it really came roaring back with a vengeance in April, 2007 after talk-show host Don Imus was fired from both CBS and MSNBC for referring to the Rutgers female basketball team as “nappy headed hos."
Amidst the calls for his immediate dismissal, I remember thinking that his comments were unnecessarily vicious, nasty and indicative of something someone might say when they have nothing of substance to share. It reflected more on Imus’ inability to be relevant anymore rather than any racism he may have harbored. It was stupidity at its most palpable.
However, exponentially more appalling than Imus’ cranky attempt at on-air hilarity was his subsequent groveling to Al Sharpton - the arbiter of all that is just and fair in America - to try and explain himself. If there was anymore “shock” inside that crumbling cowboy-hat wearing jock, it may have been snuffed for good when he arrived to apply butterfly kisses to the feet of Sharpton.
Cowboy, indeed.
In the aftermath of that incredibly overblown controversy, the gauntlet was officially thrown down by Al Sharpton in his successful attempt to vanquish Don Imus from public view. With an authority vested in him by the state of his own love of publicity, speaking like he was FDR addressing Congress after Pearl Harbor, he fired the first real shot in what was the latest, full-bodied, unexpurgated revival in the battle to bring back the Fairness Doctrine.
With Imus (temporarily) excommunicated from the church of tolerance, Sharpton decided there were bigger fish to be fried. Said Mr. Sharpton,”It is our feeling that this is only the beginning. We must have a broad discussion on what is permitted and not permitted in terms the airwaves.”
Thank goodness he’s around.
Translated, using my Sharpton/English dictionary, his rousing words read like this: The “our” he referred to was, of course, himself, his crony race-baiters and petrified guilt-ridden white liberals. The term “only the beginning” was self-evident – there were (and still are) a whole bunch more evil, racist, sexist, whatever-ist radio talk-show scum who needed to be examined and dealt with. When he used the phrase “broad discussion,” he meant that he and his ilk would dictate what was acceptable for the airwaves while the media continued to do all they could to demonstrate how unbiased and straight up the middle they were. The word “airwaves,” naturally, meant (and still means) talk radio.
The progression is a natural one.
Right after Imus was let go, his former MSNBC colleague Keith Olbermann – in one of the most behind-kissing performances this side of Mr. Smithers – said to Jesse Jackson, “Someone like Rush Limbaugh — how have they kept their time slots? Will there be an increased effort to either get them to contain themselves within the rounds of decency, or will there be a new sensitivity to them? Are they on the ropes? Are they on probation because of this?”
Jackson agreed that the Imus incident could serve as momentum for such a push. “There must be a renewed sensitivity and a broader public outcry,” said Jesse. (Oh, dandy … MORE sensitivity). The reverend also seized the opportunity to condemn MSNBC for not having enough black hosts. “All day, all night, all white,” Mr. Rainbow exclaimed.
Olbermann immediately let Jackson know that when he was away from his hosting duties, he had an African-American female fill in for him.
Good for you, Keith.
(Jackass)