Welcome to Nancy Pelosi’s Amerika

Remember the ‘Fairness Doctrine’ — the concept that because radio and television signals were carried on”the public’s airwaves,” the government assumed the right to force stations to submit to the government concept of what is and isn’t fair? The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) abandoned this stupid idea back in 1987. Well, now that Nancy Pelosi is in charge of Congress, they want to back the 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, [Dennis] 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.

In other words, ‘It’s not fair that these guys are allowed to criticize us, and when we want to criticize them, no one wants to listen. And America would be a better place is access to ideas with which we disagree are limited.’

My two cents: Feh.

First: The right winger talkers have themselves to blame. Many of them exist only to be mouthpieces for the GOP, specifically the conservative wing of the GOP. By becoming a willing and often uncritical part of the GOP propaganda machine, they made themselves legitimate targets for the Democrats and the Uber-liberals (in their eyes’ at least). Were Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Matt Drudge and Michael Savage (I think I just named the entire WMBD1470 lineup) even a little but closer to real journalists instead of shrill pimps for the conservative agenda, Pelosi and Crew wouldn’t think of getting away with this.

Second: Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Drudge and Savage might be conservo-pimps, but they have the God-given right to be conservo-pimps. I hope that one day management at WMBD remembers what a great news and entertainment that station used to be. Until then, that station has every right to air that crap if it wants, without Nancy Pelosi and her minions deciding what is or isn’t fair. Forgive me, but I see nothing in the 1st Amendment that makes freedom of speech applicable only to speech the government says is fair. It just isn’t there.

Third: And let’s drop the nonsense about how the scarcity of airwave frequencies gives the government an obligation to be “fair,” which is an objective term and cannot be defined by law. This is 2007 and never in the history of mankind has there been more ways for consumers of news to access the media. Satellite radio alone has made it possible for everyone to get access to thousands of stations. The Internet offers radio. Hell, the Internet alone has made is nearly impossible any anyone to claim they are being denied a voice. As municipal WiFi spreads across the county, couples with ever cheaper Internet ready laptops, everyone in America is going to be wired in. And if Pelosi is worried that right-wingers are monopolizing the spectrum, then let her and her Congressional minions light a fire under the FCC and release those low-power FM radio licenses they’ve been talking about.

Fourth: And the idea of public ownership of the airwaves is laughable concept. First, light itself is a form of electromagnetic radiation. When you walk by a Journal Star news box and see the headline, you are being bombarded by a signal that has passed over the public’s airwaves. Do I have the right to petition the government to regulate that? If you want to know if the government can and should regulate frequencies so that there people can actually use radio, then the answer is “yes.’ It’s a necessary form of regulation under the interstate commerce clause of the constitution. But the government should have no right to regulate the content.