Fairness Doctrine

You can tell when a liberal politician is in deep sushi by two things:

a) The MSM starts buying into the criticism that conservatives and libertarians made for months prior to their discovery

b) The wounded target's political allies "circle the wagons" and start returning fire against the officeholder's critics

We are witnessing this scenario today unfolding in Connecticut

Led by intrepid columnist Kevin Rennie, the Hartford Courant has raised the decible level of dissatisfaction with Dodd, culminating with calling his AIG bonus blunder a "flip-flop" in a front page headline and having a liberal writer urge Dodd not to see re-election.

Since the Courant's reversal of fortune on a CT political icon whom they have supported for decades, the CT Democratic establishment did what it does best. Circle the wagons around their wounded leader.  They've been doing a "dog and pony" show around the state where all the leading Democrats stand behind the embattled Dodd.

Including Attorney General Dick Blumenthal

Remember him. Once he was very upset with Countrywide Lending's predatory practices.

But when it came to Chris Dodd's deal with Countrywide, he gave the Senator a clean bill of health.

"We subpoena documents. We don't voluntarily necessarily accept representations made to us by companies like Countrywide," Blumenthal responded. "Chris Dodd has disclosed those documents, he has disclosed those facts and I believe the people of Connecticut will accept his explanation and elect him in 2010." 

Hmm, Dick, I know I went to some jock colleges unlike you and your  Harvard+ Yale pedigree. But, hmmm. a) you never subpoenaed Dodd's documents.  and b) Dodd didn;t really disclose them--unless one hour of letting handpicked reporters view documents constitutes "disclosure" (Hmm...I'll try that next time I have a discovery dispute with the AG's office).

Here's what the Wall Street Journal had to say about Blumenthal's defense of Dodd.  

Inappropriate doesn't begin to describe Mr. Blumenthal's appearance this week on Hartford's WFSB-TV. The AG compared Mr. Dodd, who was due to receive an estimated savings of $75,000 over the life of his two VIP mortgage loans, to borrowers allegedly duped by unscrupulous lenders. Mr. Blumenthal claimed that "there's no evidence of wrongdoing on [Mr. Dodd's] part any more than victims who were misled or deceived by Countrywide."

But I merely set the table here. What just happened really shows to what lengths the Democrats will use their levers of power to protect their own.

As we all well know, the Tribune Company is in bankruptcy.  The Tribune owns the Courant and the Fox TV affiliate in Hartford, Channel 61. To survive the recession, the Tribune proposes to combine the news staff of the Courant and Fox 61.  

And who's against this. Chris Dodd's loyal lackey Dick Blumenthal

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal wrote the owner of Tribune Wednesday saying that the merger of the Hartford Courant, WTIC-TV, and WTXX-TV may violate the Federal Communications Commissions ban on a company owning a television station and newspaper in the same market.

“I am concerned that allowing these entities to fully merge into one news and information operation goes well beyond what the FCC intended when it granted Tribune a two-year limited waiver,” Blumenthal wrote in this letter to Tribune Co. CEO Sam Zell.

Hmm, Dick, in case you haven;t noticed the newspaper business is not. hmm, in the best of health these days. Maybe saving the Courant might be...a good thing.

So what to make of AG Blumenthal's sudden concern over media consolidation?   

Could this be an effort to suggest that fewer problems for Senator Dodd might mean fewer problems for the Courant's business plan?

We've never seen Democratic politicians manipulate the regulatory process to benefit their interests, now have we?

Perhaps Ivy League lawyer Blumenthal ought to reacquaint himself with this concept I learned at my non-elite law school

Think there's been a "chilling effect'" placed on the Courant's future coverage of Senator Dodd ?

I do.  We'll see how interested the Left is in the First Amendment once liberals decide to chill conservatives. My guess. Not a peep. 

 ====UPDATE====

A good night's sleep caused me to remember this prior incident when a media person got a little too hostile at Senator Dodd, and his corporate masters decided to "self-sanction" themselves --no doubt so as not to draw attention to folks who might bring in the FCC to scour their affairs.I wrote about it at the time.   Here's some FoxNews coverage at the time

Two stories emerged this week that demonstrate the absolute intellectual bankruptcy of the media reform agenda. It is just another attempt to gain power for the left.

A Huffington Post writer argued that Clear Channel and Rupert Murdoch's media empire should be broken up by the FCC and the DOJ's anti-trust division:

The Obama Administration's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and a revivified Anti-Trust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice could pursue all sorts of reforms that would open up the nation's political discourse. A few minor changes in the rules and regulations governing the public airwaves and corporate media consolidation could transform the political economy of the media sector. Such reforms would make it more difficult for networks to shove people like Cheney, Rove, and Fleischer down our throats because enhanced competition would mean that rivals might be broadcasting more attractive fare. Breaking up Rupert Murdoch's empire (starting with revoking the waiver that allows him to own the New York Post), and busting up Clear Channel's monopoly of radio would be a good place to start. Congress, working with the Obama Administration, could then revisit the odious Telecommunications Act of 1996 and remove or rework its worst provisions. Look at what the media monopolies did during the Bush years. The Bush Administration never could have lied us into going to war in Iraq if it were not for the duplicity of the corporate media.

But ... Nancy Pelosi argues that the New York Times should be exempted from anti-trust laws.

Two weeks ago, a friend from Austin noted that he drives to work listening to his favorite Dallas radio station growing up. He listens to it over internet radio over his iPhone, which is them plugged into the auxillary jack on his car radio.

Yet the left is pushing a media localism agenda. Weird. I mean, I am not sure that I have particular problems with this particular bill. But there seems something kind of retro about it.

I haven't commented on the current brouhaha over Rush Limbaugh, mostly because it seems like a continuation of the last brouhaha (I love that word...), but the left's comments on Limbaugh are just so damn funny, or insane--I never quite know which.

Limbaugh and his cohorts (Coulter, Hannity, Beck, Savage, and so on), are largely responsible for our toxic political environment. Given major media platforms to launch crude and brutal political and cultural attacks, to demonize liberals, and to use rage as a means of lining their own pockets, these 'entertainers' have poisoned our national discourse.

Once again--the five year old's view of fairness.  I feel bad for being amused at the antics of this pathetic man.  Anything the left says about Republicans is completely justified--any criticism of the left is an outrage.  Yet in his conniption, he does make some good points.

The myth of a technological, grassroots revolution, of prodigious strategic and tactical brilliance, of a do-no-wrong campaign, perhaps the greatest ever run, that myth sounds good, but it's not what happened. The reality was that the 2008 election was the age-old battle of character-building and character-destruction. Obama's team won that battle against Hillary Clinton not just because of Obama's abundant positive traits but because people like Rush Limbaugh gave him a 15-year head start against her. He won it against John McCain because McCain squandered years of character-building by enabling the excesses of George W. Bush and by running an erratic, unfocused campaign that served to highlight the best of Obama's character and the worst of his. Character versus character.

Democratic strategists, busy sparring with Rush Limbaugh, should keep that in mind. The seeds of Democratic defeat are planted not by Republican elected officials, who, like McCain, will carry the Bush albatross for years to come, but by those who can freely fan the flames of outrage, who can fight dirty, who can bend and break the rules with impunity, who can tear down their opponents' integrity and character, and whose apparent reward (as in the case of Ann Coulter) is to be given yet a larger platform.

Ignoring the Herculean efforts to avoid taking any responsibility for left-wing character assassination, the central point is a truism--one campaign, or one side, tries to characterize the other as loathsome creatures of the fetid swamp, while handing out halos and angel's wings to its own side.  More importantly--it works.  George W. Bush went from one of the most popular Presidents in history to one of the most reviled, largely as a result of an orchestrated campaign of unbalanced reporting and sheer, unadulterated hate speech (miserable failure, George Bush doesn't like black people, etc...)  Yet it would be disingenuous not to point out that Bush gave his political enemies the openings, and failed to respond effectively.  Define yourself or others will gladly do it for you.

Which brings us to Rush Limbaugh; he who hopes for Obama's failure with all the fervor of Peter Daou's similar hope that Barry would fail in the primaries.

If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?  Billy Shakes

Limbaugh of course does something I've never heard any lefty milquetoast do--he elucidates political and economic principles.  He explains <em>why</em> Obama is destroying the country.  The left just tells you something is morally wrong and then demands we bow our heads in shame.

And therein lies the problem.

Its easy to do the rageboy thing when you're in opposition, but the Democrats have to defend actual policies now and attempt to explain their rationale.  They are effectively on Rush's playing field and find they can't bend it like Beckham.

Daou tacitly contradicts his own observation--that one has to respond to the opposition's attempts to define you with your own more positive characterizations.  Since there is no effective response to Limbaugh, Coulter, etal, he goes all Amish on us--shut out the Satanic forces of the outside world and let us join hands in prayer to the black Jesus.

Siege mentality.

I've always believed that the most effective response is to go after those in the media and the political establishment who give them a platform and who legitimize their radical words but not to engage them in a head-to-head (which gives them credence they don't deserve). So by no means am I advocating ignoring them, as some have interpreted from my post.

Well, yes he is--advocating ignoring them.  He just doesn't want to look like he's ignoring them by forbidding all radios, televisions and the internet in the Barack Davidian compound.

Good luck with that.  I don't think we need Rush Limbaugh to point out that no one has any confidence in the Obama financial "rescue" plan and that the Dow is at its lowest point since 1992.

There is a point to this post, and its this--the Fairness Doctrine hasn't gone away--it is in effect the last best hope for Democrats to hold on to political power.  It is no longer a matter of debate but a survival necessity.  The first amendment must die so that Democrat political power may live.

Adam Theirer, a scholar at the Progress and Freedom Foundation, notes that the Fairness Doctrine was part of a regulatory paradigm being pushed by the left and, in particular, the group Free Press. This fight is not over. Adam's piece is worth reading:

Of course, the radicals at the (Un)Free Press weren’t about to let one of the Left’s old favorite regulations go so away without asking for something in return.  One of the reasons that Silver and Ammori are suddenly willing to give their blessing to the Doctrine’s burial is because they want to get on with the more far-reaching agenda of micro-managing media markets using a variety of less visible regulations.

Indeed, in their paper, Silver and Ammori go to great pains to try to show that the Fairness Doctrine supposedly has nothing to do with all the other regulations that they want Congress and the FCC to continue to enforce, or even expand.  These goals include media ownership restrictions, diversity mandates, local programming regulation, and so on.  Recognizing that the Fairness Doctrine was not only ineffective but also a useful tool for many on the political Right to whip their base into action, the Free Press moved to preemptively divorce their other pet projects from the Fairness Doctrine.

It’s a brilliant tactical move by Free Press; lull Limbaugh and other conservatives into a deep sleep by throwing them the bone of a Fairness Doctrine win, and then push a far more radical regulatory agenda through the back-door once they’ve stopped paying attention.  Of course, these things cannot be as easily divorced as the Free Press radicals want us to believe.  The Fairness Doctrine was just one part of a much grander regulatory paradigm that so-called progressives have pushed for under the banner of “public interest regulation.”

If nothing else, this blog is about us on the right doing a better job communicating and knocking down barriers to our effectiveness that come from within the movement.

A great example is how many on the right are all lathered up about the return of the Fairness Doctrine under an Obama Administration.

I have two words for these people: Not happening. Not only has Obama, though a spokesman, flatly denied any interest in reimposing the Fairness Doctrine, or otherwise failed to show any interest in the issue, but his pursuing it would be political suicide. Even if you don't believe a word that comes out of his mouth, believe that he is not this dumb. 

Not only would the Fairness Doctrine constitute a direct provocation to the Right without any tangible political benefit in the Center or the Left, but Democrats now the advantage in both mainstream and alternative media and have less reason to go after conservatives' atrophying talk radio advantage.

As tirelessly chronicled elsewhere, sites like TPM and HuffPo and ThinkProgress are the liberal talk radio. Obama raised a motherlode from the Internet in a way conservatives have been unable to do using talk radio because the Web is an all-encompassing home for communication and activation. Not only do you you have a mechanism for motivating people, but you have the click mechanism for funding and real-time response. Even when talk radio is successful at driving action, as with the immigration debate, its versatility is limited by the number of talkers on the AM dial. On the Internet, the number of activation channels is unlimited and the surround sound from this cacophony is persistent. The Left understood that the web was the medium of the future, with flailing catchup projects like Air America reduced to window dressing.

Sorry to burst anyone's bubble, but liberals are unlikely to upset the apple cart with alternative media because they now dedicated channels of their own, unlike in the early Clinton years. The reimposition of the Fairness Doctrine went nowhere when Rush was on the rise in 1993, and it will go nowhere next year or the year, especially with conservative talk radio no longer the center of the universe.

So, why does it bother me that some people focus on the issue?

First off, even with the proliferation of media, there is only so much bandwidth in the media ecosystem for conservative opposition messages. Do you really want to waste it on a nothing-burger like the Fairness Doctrine? There are enough legitimate threats -- endless bailouts, runaway deficit spending, nationalized health care, card check -- that I don't think we can afford to throw away our limited political capital on a non-issue.

Second, conservatism in the public arena has had a substance problem these last few months. Call it the William Ayers Effect -- for what we were talking about when the economy went to hell in a handbasket this fall. Obama is promising drastic and radical change on the issue that's of central and singular importance to the public -- the economy. It is on that issue, and on very few others, on which we must engage. If Obama revives the Old Deal on top of the $700 billion bailout, that will be a huge shift felt for generations to come. If he ultimately succumbs to automakers' demands for a bailout, he'll have rewarded the most pathological sectors of our economy and crippled what's left of the domestic manufacturing base. Ditto for nationalizing one seventh of the economy in addition to the everything else that's been nationalized in the last sixty days.

The Center for American Progress's talk of going 76 years back in time to the Old Deal -- when its president John Podesta is leading the Obama transition, is dead serious. It's time for conservatives to be similarly serious about how they want to oppose Obama.

Be afraid, be very afraid, but not because the Fairness Doctrine is coming back.

Going in to the first year of his Presidency is something that any President needs to handle delicately. Jimmy Carter failed to do it, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush did it almost flawlessly, and Bill Clinton went with the flow of Congress and it cost Congress. For all the things that the United States is facing in economic policy, foreign policy, and cultural divisions, President-elect Barack Obama needs to act as if he is walking on eggshells. If not, the first year could take away his aura of almost messianic appeal. 

Michael Gerson seems to think the Fairness Doctrine is a real threat.  Steve Benen correctly calls BS on this...

He's warning Obama not to embrace a policy that he already opposes, and which Democrats have no apparent interest in pursuing.

Indeed, the timing of Gerson's column makes it look especially foolish -- today, the LA Times ran a detailed piece explaining that no one is seriously pushing the Fairness Doctrine, it has no realistic chance of passing, and "right-wing radio" is sounding a "false alarm."

The LA Times is correct.  The Left knows the Fairness Doctrine is a political loser.  It's dead.  The Center for American Progress has even said there is "no need to return to the Fairness Doctrine."   While it's mentioned now and then, there's just no chance the specific Fairness Doctrine regulation itself is coming back.  However, that's quite different from saying the Democrats are not still trying to achieve the same goals as the Fairness Doctrine.  They are.

The Center for American Progress says the Fairness Doctrine would not "address the gap between conservative and progressive talk ".  That's important.  They're not dismissing the underelying goals of government-managed fairness and opinion egalitarianism.  They're simply saying this is not the way to do it.

The roadmap to the Fairness Doctrine is laid out quite clearly in a 2007 Center For American Progress/Free Press report, entitled "The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio."  In that report, they lay out how they can bring about the Fairness Doctrine through other means. 

Ultimately, these results suggest that increasing ownership diversity, both in terms of the race/ethnicity and gender of owners, as well as the number of independent local owners, will lead to more diverse programming, more choices for listeners, and more owners who are responsive to their local communities and serve the public interest.

Now, pay attention to the Center for American Progress recommendation on FCC policy for the Obama administration. 

There has been an unprecedented increase in media concentration over the past decade, which has reduced the number and quality of local voices and elevated commercial interests at the expense of the public interest. The new president and the Federal Communications Commission should restore the primacy of the public interest standard and our national commitment to diverse voices and diversity of ownership. The FCC should also prioritize including all of our rapidly diversifying population in the mainstream of the technological revolution so that women and members of minority and immigrant communities are not just consumers of technology, but also owners, producers, and creators of content, applications, and facilities.

The Left has not abandoned their desire to use government to shape the landscape of political speech.  Their policy remains an "opinion diversity mandate".  But instead of approaching as an "equal time" mandate, they are trying to implement the ends of the Fairness Doctrine through an “equal access” mandate.

The Fairness Doctrine is dead.  Long live the Fairness Doctrine.

Promoted - a Republican insider frets about leadership.

Today's Examiner editorializes about a proposed ruling from the Bush White House's FCC regarding freedom of the airwaves. It's everything we fear the new Obama administration will do. Except it's coming from a Republican.

George W. Bush has not done much to help the Republican Party. His abysmal approval ratings are a big part of why we suffered so badly in congressional districts last Tuesday. Even in solid Republican districts, his approval ratings are in the 20s or 30s and it's been reported that the the right track/wrong track numbers in these districts are in the teens or even single digits. This administration from the beginning has refused to work with Republicans in congress or at the state level. In short, they've been arrogant bullies to their own people.

Now, let's look at the internal politicking taking place with the Republican leadership race for NRCC Chair. I don't have a dog in this fight. It would seem there certainly are areas where Tom Cole can improve. But will Pete Sessions be a better NRCC Chair? Don't know. Fundraising will be extremely difficult this next cycle (fewer members raising few dollars), as will candidate recruitment (who would want to run for congress when it's going to be tough raising money?) - the two big issues Sessions says he will improve if elected NRCC Chair. Fine. Good luck to whoever ends up in that job next year.

What bothers me most about the Chairman's race is that Boehner and the WHITE HOUSE (i.e., Barry Jackson, the guy who replaced Karl Rove last year) are running the campaign to elect Sessions as NRCC Chair.

Boehner, who refuses to accept any responsibility for losing more than 50 - FIFTY - House seats between 2006 to 2008, wants his own guy at the NRCC. So he's making phone calls to Members and putting the heat on them to vote for Sessions. And his partner in all of this is Jackson, who still has the weight of the White House behind him.

How exactly is this party going to move forward if everyone in leadership is hand-picked by Boehner and the Bush White House? How is that progress?

There won't be one single person in leadership who is independent of Boehner. Aside from the NRCC chairman's race, none of the seats is being contested. Boehner cleared the field and selected his own people.

And what will this yield? What should we expect from a leadership team hand picked by the same people who, as noted in today's Examiner piece, think so little of Republicans and our freedoms that they would allow the FCC to regulate the airwaves with community activists (what's to stop ACORN members will sit on the advisory boards)?

I'm at my wit's end.

Breaking news from CT today. Chris Dodd deigned to answer questions from a radio reporter.

The station owners decided not to air the interview.

http://www.everydayrepublican.com/2008/11/12/dodd-watch-day-153-censorship/

Now, Tom Scott is a former hardline Republican state senator and third party gubernatorial candidate. He's made no bones about the poor regard he's held Dodd in well before the "Friends of Angelo" mortgage scandal went public. But we are talking about a host on New Haven's top AM radio station here; not some blogger under a screen name

The New Haven Independent is an "alternative" newspaper that has little use for anything to the right of ACORN, but god bless their heart, they do like the First Amendment.  And here's their take on Tom Scott's last stand  http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2008/11/exclusive_censo.php 

"Dodd Interview Censored"

WELI and Clear Channel are trying to paint this as some "creative disagreement" between Scott and his novice co-host. Sure. The suits at Clear Channel simply thought raking Dodd over the coals would be bad business for the whole chain.

Here's the interview too hot for New Haven to handle  http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/upload/2008/11/102808_edited_Dodd.mp3

I'd like to say this is the last time corporate radio squelches a controversial local host so as to make nice with the Democratic establishment, but I'm sure it won't be.