The essence of the Fairness Doctrine is that a radio or television station must offer equal airtime to any politician who feels he or she was maligned, misquoted, or mistreated to present a rebuttal.  This doctine, arguably the most blatant and egregious attempt at Big Brother socialism the left has ever fostered in this country, was killed by the Federal Communications Commission in August, 1987.  In its ruling (the Syracuse Peace Council decision), the FCC opined that there had developed by that time sufficient media outlets for any politician to fully vent.  Besides, they reasoned, there is this thing called the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, which prevents government from telling the people what they can and cannot say.  (The first cousin to the Fairness Doctrine is McCain-Feingold, which disallows Americans their First Amendment right to express an opinion about a candidate where any reasonable number of people can hear it or read it within X days of an election.  We can always hope that Congress will kill this turkey sometime soon.)

    Recently, Hillary Clinton called for a revival of the Fairness Doctrine.  Alertly recognizing that radio talk shows are overwhelmingly conservative and tend to base their offerings on facts, she reasons that they don't present her in what she feels is her best light.  Radio talk show hosts have an annoying habit of using facts to bolster their arguments.  Due to the advent of LexisNexis and other fact-checking devices, Hillary's tendency to say one thing to her current audience and often the opposite to the next group is routinely exposed.  Hillary doesn't care to be embarrassed that way and wants free airtime so she can spin the situation.

    In its simplest form, the Fairness Doctrine is like two men's clothing stores.  Let's say you and I open men's apparel shops across the street from one another.  In your store, you offer practical, sensible, attractive, and reasonably priced merchandise.  At first only a few customers come into your store, but they leave with merchandise and smiles.  Soon, as word gets around, droves and droves of customers come into your store and become believers in your product.  You become so swamped with business that you have to expand your store and then expand it fourfold again.  Within a short time, other entrepreneurs like you copy your formula and open successful stores of their own.  Soon they are expanding as well.

    By contrast, in my store, I offer only tie-died shirts, bell-bottom trousers, headbands, octagonal sunglasses, beads, incense, and other relics of the 60's.  Modernity means nothing to me; I am so taken with the ideas of the revolution that my store proudly reflects that era and will not vary its offering.

    Alas, only a few people come into my store.  Granted, they're as rabid as I am, but they don't pay the bills.  Day after day, I look longingly and with increasing bitterness at the hordes of people going into your store and coming out convinced of the value of your product.  It's not long before I realize that something has to change or I'm going to go broke.  So I invoke the Fairness Doctrine.  The Federal Clothing Store Commission orders you to abandon your store three days a week, first removing all the merchandise from the shelves.  This allows me to come in and set up my products on your shelves.

    But no new customers come into the store while I'm the proprietor.  My fellow lovers of peace, group hugs, and flower power socialism walk across the street and buy from me, but eventually reality prevails and I go under.

    That's what happened with Air America.  Seeing the pervasive and growing popularity of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, Dennis Prager, Laura Ingraham and others like them, liberals longed for a medium where their view of this nation could be heard.  With millions of dollars of backing from wealthy sympathizers, Air America was proudly launched.

    It was a bomb from the start.  Unlike conservative talk radio, which actually has listeners, Air America has never had the capability to pay its way.  Potential advertisers prefer stations where they have a chance to sell their products to more than a handful of listeners.  Finally, after six years of constant struggle, Air America allowed its sanity-challenged principal host, Al Franken, to "resign."  The network was recently sold to the Green Family, who promise to reorganize and make it successful.  I don't recommend holding your breath until it happens.

    Hillary Clinton, covetous of the enormous audience to whom conservative talk radio regularly broadcasts, now wants to reimpose the Fairness Doctrine.  She wants a piece of Rush's show.  Evidently she doesn't think the Green Family is going to fix the ailing Air America.

    Maybe Bill could go on a few more speaking tours, or they could hock some of the furniture the Clintons stole from the White House.  Then he could buy Hillary her own radio station.

Posted by Hale Meserow
March 14, 2007