Life's Not Fair, and Neither Is the Press

It's good to know that Congress has a solution to the fact that many Americans oppose things like the immigration bill. No, their solution isn't going to be an attempt to convince us they're right -- it's an attempt to bring back the idiotically named "Fairness Doctrine"...

Why do liberals like Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., keep trying to tell the rest of us what political opinions we must listen to in the media?

Feinstein says she is “looking at” reviving the Fairness Doctrine to counteract the decidedly conservative bent of talk radio. Former President Reagan and a Democratic Congress repealed the Fairness Doctrine in 1987.

She wants to bring it back because she thinks “one-sided programming” pushes the American people into “extreme views” — such as their current opposition to the Bush/Kennedy/McCain immigration bill. She wants “an opportunity to present the other side” by forcing radio stations to offer more liberal fare.

Of course, nobody thinks a revived Fairness Doctrine would only be applied to radio. It wouldn’t be long before we would hear liberals demanding that broadcast TV and the Internet be made “fair,” too.

What Feinstein really wants is for federal bureaucrats to decide what political opinion programming we should hear. She presumes to know better than listeners what is “fair.”

As liberal talk radio host Alan Colmes noted tonight, the Fairness Doctrine basically left radio hosts trying to write down whom they spoke with, what they said and having government regulators review it. Colmes opposes the doctrine in part because it would lead to bad radio -- and he's right, because every time a conservative or liberal radio host said something entertaining and pointed about one of the idiots in the Senate, we'd have to listen to a response from said Senators (think John Kerry, or Trent Lott). But more importantly, the Fairness Doctrine is an offense against free speech.

Of course, incumbent Senators love limiting free speech, since it prevents us from saying anything nasty about them. Think about McCain-Feingold as a good example. Luckily, efforts are already underway to kill the doctrine. This comment from Dick Durbin sums up why any self-respecting American should oppose the Fairness Doctrine...

“It’s time to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine,” said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). “I have this old-fashioned attitude that when Americans hear both sides of the story, they’re in a better position to make a decision.”

And we all know having a government bureaucrat judge whether we're hearing both sides of the story is what America was built on. Oh, wait, it was built on allowing free speech. Then again, Durbin believes the Constitution is a living document, so maybe he thinks the First Amendment got up and moved away.

In the meantime, maybe we can apply the damn doctrine to Hollywood as well, so i can stop seeing previews for Michael Moore movies.