Obama and the "Fairness Doctrine": Will you restrict freedom or expand it?"

My friend, Illinois Senator Paul Simon, once said on the same committee that the test for a Supreme Court nominee is not where he stands on any one specific issue. The test is this: Will you use your power on the court to restrict freedom or expand it? Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), Justice Samuel Alito confirmation hearings, January 9, 2006.

Durbin was one of the earliest proponents of a Barack Obama presidential run.

So your test, Senator Obama, if John McCain somehow manages not to win the presidency next month, is this: Will you use the presidency to restrict freedom or expand it?

Although Obama claims to oppose a reinstatement of the absurdly-named "Fairness Doctrine," leaders of his party favor bringing the nasty relic back.

For the second time in a row I'm excerpting from New York Post:

Should Barack Obama win the presidency and Democrats take full control of Congress, next year will see a real legislative attempt to bring back the Fairness Doctrine - and to diminish conservatives' influence on broadcast radio, the one medium they dominate.

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The Fairness Doctrine was an astonishingly bad idea. It's a too-tempting power for government to abuse. When the doctrine was in effect, both Democratic and Republican administrations regularly used it to harass critics on radio and TV.

Second, a new Fairness Doctrine would drive political talk radio off the dial. If a station ran a big-audience conservative program like, say, Laura Ingraham's, it would also have to run a left-leaning alternative. But liberals don't do well on talk radio, as the failure of Air America and indeed all other liberal efforts in the medium to date show. Stations would likely trim back conservative shows so as to avoid airing unsuccessful liberal ones.

Then there's all the lawyers you'd have to hire to respond to the regulators measuring how much time you devoted to this topic or that. Too much risk and hassle, many radio executives would conclude. Why not switch formats to something less charged - like entertainment or sports coverage?

Some history: When radio came into being, there was genuine fear that the new media was so powerful, that it could turn people into brainwashed maniacs, like what happened in Nazi Germany. So it was decided that since radio airwaves are scarce resource, and could cause damage to society, they should be managed for the public good. When television came along, the same rules applied--First Amendment or no First Amendment. Keep in mind by the 1980s, there were far more radio and television stations than daily newspapers in America.

So much for scarcity.

During the Reagan administration, the FCC abolished the Fairness Doctrine. Talk radio, dominated by conservatives, flourished. But a revived Fairness Doctrine, championed by the Democrats, would kill it.

One more time, Senator Obama:

Will you use the presidency to restrict freedom or expand it?

Based on your Missouri "truth squad," and your campaign's assaults on the Milt Rosenberg Show, my money is on the former.

Two weeks to Election Day.

Obama's "Ministry of Truth" operating in Missouri

Obama goons attack free speech on Milt Rosenberg's show, AGAIN!

Stanley Kurtz and Milt Rosenberg follow-up

Obama thugs threatening free speech

New McCain-Palin TV ad: "Hypo"

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