What we have to look forward to under an Obama/Pelosi/Reid administration:
A Democrat-controlled Washington will use sweeping new rules to shush conservative political speech. For starters, expect a real push to bring back the Fairness Doctrine.
True, Obama says he isn’t in favor of re-imposing this regulation, which, until Ronald Reagan’s FCC junked it in the ’80s, required broadcasters to give airtime to opposing viewpoints or face fines or even loss of license. But most top Democrats, including Nancy Pelosi, are revved up about the idea, and it’s hard to imagine Obama vetoing a new doctrine if Congress delivers him one.
Make no mistake: a new Fairness Doctrine would vaporize political talk radio, the one major medium dominated by the right. If a station ran a successful conservative program like, say, Mark Levin’s, it would also have to run a left-leaning alternative, even if — as with Air America and all other liberal efforts in the medium to date — it can’t find any listeners or sponsors.
There’s certainly nothing in Obama’s current behavior to indicate otherwise, as the editorial points out.
Even ignoring the First Amendment issues (which are sufficient reason in themselves to fight it), it would be a nightmare for broadcasters to enforce. What is “balance,” and who would decide? The model here is for the issue ad. If there’s a proposition on the ballot, and you run an editorial on it (say) in favor, then it’s fairly straightforward to say that it could be balanced by an editorial against it. But even there, who gets the opportunity? There might be multiple people or groups against it for different reasons, some more articulate than others. How would it be decided which of them got to “balance” it?
And once we get outside that narrow focus, into talk radio itself, it becomes a real nightmare, and a litigator’s delight. Consider Larry Elder, who is mostly a libertarian. Who “balances” him? A socialist who disagrees with his economics? A “conservative” who disagrees with his views on pornography and drugs?
What single blog is the antithesis of this one, or Instapundit? I sure as hell wouldn’t want to be the television or radio program director who had to decide. All of this, of course, is predicated on the simpleton’s assumption that political views and issues can be expressed on a unidimensional “left-right” scale. And even if that were the case, and political issues didn’t fall into a hypercube of multiple dimensions coming from all points on the hyperspherical compass, it wouldn’t be that simple, because the magnitude has to be calibrated as well. Is Rush Limbaugh as far “right” as Randi Rhodes is far “left”? Where is the pivot on the scale? Who determines what is “mainstream”? Ted Kennedy?
The First Amendment should have put a stake through the heart of this pernicious and anti-freedom nonsense years ago, but the fascist proponents of things like it have long abandoned principles like that.
[Afternoon update]
Treacher has some thoughts on the “Deathbed Media.”
A new Fairness Doctrine could be a huge coup for Cato and Reason. If there is one major political point of view that isn’t getting enough play at either Fox News or MSNBC, it’s Libertarianism. Classical Liberals could also benefit, since clearly no major party represents them these days.
One thing I do predict is that if a Fairness Doctrine does land in our laps, expect the liberal side of the media to regret and foreswear ever asking for such a thing. Conservative and Libertarian interests won’t be afraid to use it.
How was the issue of multi-dimensionality and degree of magnitude handled when the Fairness Doctrine was enforced? Were there challenges on those grounds?
Regarding Obama, this probably won’t make you happy, but here it is:
From http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6573406.html
“Sen. Obama does not support reimposing the Fairness Doctrine on broadcasters,” press secretary Michael Ortiz said in an e-mail to B&C late Wednesday.
“He considers this debate to be a distraction from the conversation we should be having about opening up the airwaves and modern communications to as many diverse viewpoints as possible,” Ortiz added. “That is why Sen. Obama supports media-ownership caps, network neutrality, public broadcasting, as well as increasing minority ownership of broadcasting and print outlets.”
How was the issue of multi-dimensionality and degree of magnitude handled when the Fairness Doctrine was enforced?
It was handled mostly by not having much political speech on the airwaves. It’s not a coincidence that talk radio took off after it was ended.
“Sen. Obama does not support reimposing the Fairness Doctrine on broadcasters,” press secretary Michael Ortiz said in an e-mail to B&C late Wednesday.
So, Bob, are you saying that he will veto the Reid/Pelosi bill when it reaches his desk? And do you believe that, or expect me to?
Worst case scenario is this makes satellite radio into a viable medium.
Hey, if they want to counter Rush on AM, put them on at three in the morning.
I consider my point of view different from everybody else on the planet. Obviously, I should have equal time on every station. This is absurd.
It does go with what I think will be the first order of business with the new Obama administration… make sure no opposing camp has any chance of ever again taking their power away. After two terms for Obama, Michelle gets two. By then the Earth should be fully healed.
Satellite radio?
As bandwidth costs continue downward, internet radio and television (You Tube on steroids) will continue to make the radio and television frequencies less and less relevant.
Copyright issues and net neutrality shall be the battleground. Lawrence Lessig is writing lots of good stuff on these issues.
Hmmmmm.
1. Obama has gone back on every single position he has ever taken.
Bar none.
2. If you think Pelosi et al wouldn’t regulate satellite radio and the internet with regards a new Fairness Doctrine, you’re fooling yourselves.
3. Republicans had an opportunity to force equality in the media, and now because Republicans are incompetent at political infighting they’re doomed.
“2. If you think Pelosi et al wouldn’t regulate satellite radio and the internet with regards a new Fairness Doctrine, you’re fooling yourselves.”
Offshore the controlling interest. Problem solved.
Offshore the controlling interest. Problem solved.
Problem not solved. Do you think China has a problem censoring data coming from the US? Sure, it’s not perfect and absolute, but it is still effective. It is actually easier to restrict satellite and internet, because all it takes is regulation of the receivers being sold in the US.
If you think the problem is solved, then perhaps you forgot how easy it was for a Democrat President to pass V-Chip legislation through a Republican Congress.
Christopher Hitchens weighs in on the Obama versus McCain match-up:
I used to call myself a single-issue voter on the essential question of defending civilization against its terrorist enemies and their totalitarian protectors, and on that “issue” I hope I can continue to expose and oppose any ambiguity. Obama is greatly overrated in my opinion, but the Obama-Biden ticket is not a capitulationist one, even if it does accept the support of the surrender faction, and it does show some signs of being able and willing to profit from experience.
and the money quote:
Vote for Obama — McCain lacks the character and temperament to be president. And Palin is simply a disgrace.
Christopher Hitchens, today in Slate:
http://slate.com/id/2202163
Bill, Christopher Hitchens’ opinion on McCain/Palin is entirely unrelated to this post. This is not a community bulletin board.
Regardling Treacher’s article, I wonder how Fairness Doctrine will work when the media can put up a fabricated partisan story and then pull it. Does it count as a partisan story that requires equal time (from what I recall, it should, because before it was posted, it would have required notification to the politician that it was coming out), or if it is removed or modified to be less partisan, did it never happen?
This is not a community bulletin board.
Since when???
Since when???
Since ever. I see that you’ve mistaken it for not only a public bulletin board, but a public toilet that you can use anonymously. Maybe I should just delete future posts from you, since you can’t seem to tell the difference.
Leland, that’s the whole point. The media supports Dems at least 4 to 1 if not greater. As long as what they do is advances the liberal agenda, they will be given a pass. You end up with the people in power deciding what’s “fair”. The Dems will try to impose college style “speech codes” on the public at large. Look at the news today. McCain is inciting violence, hate, rapine and murder yet; the fire bombing of McCain signs in a family’s yard goes virtually unreported. The ACORN story has been out there for 4 years and their actions are finally egregious enough that the MSM can’t ignore them. David Brooks will have to stop writing because every network will want him for their “token” conservative. The ability of opposing voices to be heard much less have their candidates elected will be seriously damaged. The expense to fight these cases to the Supreme Court will be time consuming and expensive.
As I recall, the MSM was less poisonously openly pro-left in the days of the FD. To be sure, what they presented on the “con” side was about the worst argument from the least attractive proponent they could find, but, nonetheless, they were a bit more muted in their “pro” side partly so that they couldn’t be easily called liars immediately afterward.
For that reason, I’m not very convinced the MSM is going to be happy about a new FD. That’s not to even mention all the MoveOn wackjobs who, if nothing else, guard their right to post whatever they damn well please on their blogs with a zealousness that exceeds your generic Islmaic suicide bomber.
So I think if the Pelosi/Reid “old guard” Stalinists introduce this thing, they’ll find their support from the young Obamabots evaporating (and Obama’s nonsupport for the issue is a key clue — he certainly knows how they think, if that verb is fully appropriate to what goes on in their heads).
That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t try to ram through something blatantly biased, that openly regulated right-side discussion while leaving left-side alone. They’re perfectly capable of such crudity. But that wouldn’t pass constitutional muster in front of the Roberts court, or even probably in front of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who’s not exactly a fool.
So I think we’re probably OK. I don’t think the legions of The Olord can put the genie back in the bottle. And if they try — well, one thing that is very true about the young is that they are fickle. They can abandon Obama and the Democrat’s banner just as fast as they flocked to it.
Postscript: actually, I sort of wish the new Democratic majority would try exactly this kind of thing as soon as they get into office, just like Bill Clinton set out first thing to make good on his equal gay rights in the military campaign promise, an effort that instantly tarnished his star.
In the same way, if Pelosi and Obama get busy on some high-profile red meat for the Kos crowd, the blowback from the huge independent middle — which will have elected them despite these tendencies, not because of them — will blow out the Obama untouchability flame, and he’ll become a politician like every other (which for him is a problem, since so far he’s pretty much all hat and no cattle).
What’s much more to be feared is the kind of stuff he’s done in this election: proposing very moderate-sounding, and even actually moderate policies that move things slightly left — but on a very broad and permanent front. Like getting Hillary’s government health insurance for all children passed. That could easily get enough wacko left plus center-left support to pass, and there we have a major step down the road of nationalized health care, one very difficult to reverse (Hillary is no fool, that’s why she proposed it).
So…by all means, bring on the craziest ideas of the left, as fast as possible, to fracture the center-left coalition. At this point, the greatest weapon the right has against the Obama coalition is their own hubris. We need to be selling them hangin’ rope at discount prices. Wouldn’t you like to try making a noose out of this stuff? Just slip it over your own head while you’re at it, so…um…you can see how effective it would be against your enemies.
We need to be selling them hangin’ rope at discount prices. Wouldn’t you like to try making a noose out of this stuff?
Are you talking about a lynching?
II, you illiterate, google enough rope to hang yourself, and then you’ll get the point.
Sheesh. What do they teach in school these days?
The problem is not really Obama. It’s not even congress. The problem is a few 100 million people in America that don’t share an American vision. Truth, justice and the American way might have been a comic book expression, but it carried real meaning which is lost today.
People came to this country with that vision, but it’s growing dim.
College’s have imposed a speech code on students (which apparently allows them to call opponents of liberals any disgusting thing they like, but never speak against the liberal agenda.) Soon we will have a kangaroo speech court for the general population. We already have the in your face tactics that Obama encouraged. Even without the FD, what prevents that from continuing? Not the courts. He can create more of these figurative suicide bombers faster than any court system can handle.
This election cycle has shown he doesn’t have to silence his critics, he just has to control the message. Plenty of willing idiots will produce the echo chamber he needs. Game over, if we don’t find a way to change the rules.
“Problem not solved. Do you think China has a problem censoring data coming from the US? Sure, it’s not perfect and absolute, but it is still effective. It is actually easier to restrict satellite and internet, because all it takes is regulation of the receivers being sold in the US.”
Like my region-free DVD player? That sure worked well.
Game over, if we don’t find a way to change the rules.
Oy, ken, have a drink. Remain calm. Do not over-interpret the McCain/Obama fight as the Obamabots want you to do.
Remember some key facts:
(1) How easy was it going to be for any Republican to beat any Democrat after twenty years of a Republican White House, interrupted by eight years (Clinton) of what many of the Angry Left consider to be Republican-lite?
(2) How much harder did it get with the triple whammy of an oil shock, mortgage shock and the victory in Iraq?
People no longer fear losing in Iraq, they figure even an airhead like Obama can wind that up easily enough (which is not quite right, but that’s another story). It’s routine for democracies to turn out the successful wartime government. Happened to Lloyd George in England after WW1, to Churchill after WW2, to the Democrats after (well near the end of) Korea.
Furthermore, it’s also routine for the voters to turn the governing party out of power when they’re hurting in the pocketbook, whether or not it’s reasonably their fault. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Keep in mind that Obama is not stupid (in politics). He knows that unless the economy is roaring by 2011, he’s dead meat. That is going to put a serious crimp on any desire of his to get on with any share the wealth heal the planet agenda.
(3) In the face of that headwind, McCain is fighting Obama to a near draw. That’s amazing. What it tells you is that most of the country is viewing Obama with great skepticism, and essentially putting him in office on probation, and in spite of the flaky ideas of his apostles. You’re elected, they’re saying, to fix this Bush mess, and nothing else, so watch your step.
The gleeful Obamabots who think otherwise, that this is some kind of sea-change election validating collectivist ethics, are just as silly and self-deluded as the NRO Corner pundits who think America elected Reagan and Bush because of their pure culture conservative (e.g. anti-abortion, anti-gay-marriage) credentials.
Take heart. It’s just an election, and the state of the Union today, with it’s amazing degree of communication and sensitivity to public will, is such that the governing party can really only lurch right or left by very small (and largely symbolic) measures. George Bush bitterly disappointed true conservatives. You can bet Barack Obama is going to do exactly the same thing to true leftists, and for the same reasons.
Just wait.
If Obama is elected the media will be full of how capitalism and the Republicans are finished, and that the election of Obama is a mandate for all kinds of left-wing nuttery. The old bait and switch, campaign as some sort of soft-moderate but serve up hard-core partisan socialism once safely in office.
Carl, I may just take up drinking. Remain calm is good advice. It is encouraging and yes, amazing with all the headwind that McCain has been able to fight to a virtual draw. It is amazing and a cause for hope. I even hope that the media has fooled itself and the polls are bullshit because they seem to be recording some for BO even though they protest that they are for McCain (they never ask the question, they assume it from other answers.)
No question, this is a democrat year.
Iraq is the good news. I expect they will continue to improve even with the Obama-nation.
They keep spinning it’s only registration fraud, not voter fraud… but then why do it at all, if it has no effect on the outcome?
I just don’t see this as a McCain/Obama fight. I am very much afraid that it is something much bigger.
He knows that unless the economy is roaring by 2011, he’s dead meat.
Only if we still have a functioning republic. How did Hitler come to power? German was a democracy full of decent people. But it happened.
George Bush bitterly disappointed true conservatives. You can bet Barack Obama is going to do exactly the same thing to true leftists, and for the same reasons.
I’d agree if it were just politics. I think we are dealing with something more this time around.
For thirty years I’ve been puzzled by a bible prophesy that just didn’t seem plausible. This year it did.
Christians are being painted as angry and dangerous. Some are. They are made up of the wheat and the weeds. I never could believe the prophesy that government would try to exterminate christians. It just never seemed possible. Not in America. I think it’s about to become so. I know it still seems impossible.
A christian isn’t supposed to fear this. Not because of any rapture fantasy, but because of the promise that we will not be tested more than we can endure. Sometimes that endurance means dying, but we are not suppose to fear that either.
Yes, I could be delusional. I would hope your sound counsel will be the case and by remaining calm we will still be a republic through an Obama term. OTOH, the republic may stand, but my fears will still occur.
I guess I just need to let go of my fear… my anger I’m keeping.
Carl Pham wrote:
…Keep in mind that Obama is not stupid (in politics). He knows that unless the economy is roaring by 2011, he’s dead meat. That is going to put a serious crimp on any desire of his to get on with any share the wealth heal the planet agenda.
Some overconfident idiot claims to be able to shoot an apple off the top of my head without hurting me. He has a strong incentive not to miss, because he knows that he’ll be in deep trouble if he does. Should I therefore allow him to try to shoot an apple off the top of my head?
I don’t trust Obama’s abilities or his intentions. If a plurality of voters is stupid enough to elect him, what makes you think he won’t be able to escape blame for screwing up the economy? The line will be that Bush and the Republicans were so bad that it will take Obama at least eight years to undo the damage.
Do not worry.
McCain has an excellent economic plan coming out today that will address the middle class.
The IBD poll out has McCain within 2 points. Zogby is only up 4. This is still much too close to call.
Don’t believe the current polls. The Democrat weighting is much too high in all these polls.
Should I therefore allow him to try to shoot an apple off the top of my head?
Hell no! Did I counsel you not to try to defeat Obama? By no means! Go forth, brother, and do battle with The Olord and his forces of Odarkness. Sparta needs you to die for our principles.
I’m just suggesting you avoid despair. Despair is debilitating. The enemy knows this — there’s an excellent reason why the media run story after story about Obama’s inevitability. (Just like, you’ll recall, they ran story after story about the inevitability of Hillary’s quitting the race in the spring.) A cool, confident contemptuous attitude is far more powerful than a frustrated rage. If nothing else, your confidence will feed the worm of self-doubt and self-loathing that lurks in the heart of every leftist. He’s sure that somehow, you’re having more fun and getting more girls than he is.
And, you know, you are. Remember, you’re on the side with the brains and the ability, with the self-reliance and self-discipline. Even after the great socialist revolution, you’re still going to be in charge, only you’ll be a commissar or People’s Deputy instead of CEO, entrepreneur, or independent contracter. If the nonworking whiners of the world want to set up a state where we get to force them to do what we want (for the Good Of The People, natch) instead of merely try to persuade them in a free market, well, you know, good luck with that, nitwits.
I don’t trust Obama’s abilities or his intentions.
Fortunately, the Founders set up a system that functions tolerably well even with a complete idiot at the helm. It’d done so plenty of times before.
If a plurality of voters is stupid enough to elect him, what makes you think he won’t be able to escape blame for screwing up the economy?
For the same reason Bush and the Republicans haven’t been able to escape the blame. Rightly or wrongly, the voters simply assume whoever is in office is responsible for whatever happens in the election year. It’s always been that way.
The line will be that Bush and the Republicans were so bad that it will take Obama at least eight years to undo the damage.
Everyone tries that excuse. It never works.
Look, the situation is really win-win from your point of view, because you know the collectivist strategy is a failure. You should be more confident the more fruity 1970s collectivist Jimmy Carter turn down the thermostat moralizing hair shirt the other side seems to be. That strategy is such a loser for an American President. Look what it did for the Democrats in 1976! They got their man in the White House as a reaction to a horribly unpopular Republican President (Nixon), implemented the strategy with a vengeance — and what was the result? Ronald Reagan in 1980, and a quarter-century of Republican dominance. Let Obama follow the Carter Plan — we’ll have Ronald Reagan II (Sarah Palin?) in 2012, followed by another quarter century of Republican dominance.
You should fear most the moderate tendencies in Obama. If he truly does move to the center as President he could launch a Democratic dynasty. His greatest weakness is his tendency to overreach, his arrogance. It should be greeted with enthusiasm. By all means, Oh Great One, convene the Council of People’s Deputies and get out that proposal to nationalize everything from oil drilling to sex. Bwa ha ha. As Frank Herbert quotes in one of his Dune books:
Here lies a toppled god,
His fall was not a small one,
We did but build his pedestal,
A narrow and a tall one.
Don’t despair. Again good advice. However, only if elections remain mostly fair. If they can get a tax funded army to guarantee that a majority of elections go to the socialists, a bad economy is just malaise. Nobodies fault really. People are hurting. The government feels your pain. We want to help.
Those religious nuts and right wingers should just shut up. They’re just a bunch of angry racists (no matter what race they may happen to be.)
I hope McCain surprises us. Regardless of that, after the election there is a lot of work to do.