It is indeed a bit difficult to see any obvious reason for all the attention devoted to this fairness doctrine straw man. But I think we have to assume that no item gets on the other side’s talking points unless there is some underhanded reason to tout it, and this fairness doctrine thing is being so widely talked about that it’s got to have originated in their faxed talking points. So what’s the devious reason behind the coordinated campaign to puff up this straw man?

One possiblility is that they expect a real, valid legal attack against their media outlets under the next administration, so they raise an invalid straw man now in the hopes that the discrediting of the invalid attack will discredit the valid attack later on. The valid attack would presumably be based on the program, revealed several years ago, whereby the Bush administration used govt funds illegally to support propaganda efforts in US media outlets. Only a few columnists were implicated in what was revealed at that time, but since BushCo investigated itself, there’s no reason to think that this was the full extent of the program. For all we know, Limbaugh and others may have taken all sorts of illegal govt money. So they gin up a phony controversy over the Obama administration’s supposed attempt to supress Rush et al over the fairness doctrine, noisily “defeat” this non-threat, and are then in a position later to claim that the actual investigation of Rush for taking illegal govt money, when it comes down the pike, is somehow the same, discredited, non-investigation that now “threatens” Rush.

It is also possible that this is just projection, with a touch of “The guilty flee where none pursueth.” psychology, as we learn in Proverbs. If they had just won, and they were faced with such a noisome thorn in their side as they imagine Rush to be in ours, they would be seeking out every rationale imaginable to silence the threat. They can’t imagine that we aren’t as thuggish as they are, therefore we simply must be planning to silence Rush by hook or by crook, all (total lack of) evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

The last possible motive I would like to suggest comes from a consideration of just how wrong-headed they would be if they imagine we would want to silence Rush and like loonies even if there were some legitimate means to do so. Maybe at some point he and his imitators actually did us some damage. But they have pretty clearly jumped their shark, and I think it now reasonable to conclude that Olberman and Maddow perform a similar function (with this difference, they don’t lie their asses off) for our side, but lately to better effect. At this point, Rush probably is doing us a favor every time he opens his over-sized mouth and lets out some fresh outrageous lie that most people no longer fall for, and which therefore serves to discredit their side more than ours. Perhaps the other side has enough self-awareness, at least when such is necessary for them to be able to compete, to admit this reality. They might be looking forward to the day when they will want to impose a fairness doctrine so as to shut down mass media political discourse in this new era in which such discourse now works for us and against them. They want to be able, at that time, to blame us retroactively for striking first, thus their invention of an attempt by our side to impose the fairness doctrine. It’s devious, but it fits their pattern of faking prior persecution in order to justify their own later attacks.

You right wing nut jobs get off the bus….ya’ll have had your 8 years…..ITS OUR TURN NOW!!

BUZZARDS KORNER!!

We know that there’s going to be no fairness doctrine.

Instead President Obama will just declare Limbaugh and Hannity enemey combatants and [Mod: no] until they confess to being agents of Iran.

That’s the ticket.

They will want a chance to respond and explain their votes, and an opportunity to counter the worst attacks of folks like Hannity and Limbaugh. As disgusting as their attacks on folks like Barney Frank are, their real hate is directed at those that “associate” with him. It’s just like the Ayers thing…create an inflated “monster” and then tag others with “associating” with that monster.

So Snowe, Collins, Lugar, Hagel, Voinovich, and even folks like McCain (who is already being blamed for not being a true “Palin” conservative and “using” her) are the ones that will be the principle targets.

They should be the ones with the most to gain from a revived Fairness Doctrine. After all, when was the last time that moderate Republicans were able to express those perspectives in a nationwide forum? The 1970’s?

This is designed to put them in the Victim column and turn the conversation back to them.

One of the reasons that they are starting the discussion about something that is not a priority for the Democrats is so they can say they “won” the issue when nothing is done, but more likely they will use it to raise money and keep themselves in the “they are picking on me!” category.

The other reason that they are using this is because it is something that many people who aren’t totally clear about the difference between the difference between commercially sponsored speech on broadcast radio over the public air waves and speech that is in a public forum like a street corner in front of city hall or the Federal building.

As usual, their arguments are projections. They are the ones who limit others’ speech. (As someone who had his blog shut down by the lawyers for talk radio I think I know what I’m talking about).

They control the sound, the guests and the callers. If they really wanted to fight for “free speech” they should be fighting against the regulations they are currently under. They are fine with limits on profanity and indecency, they are already under those limits, why don’t they get into a fight with Focus on the Family who pushed for larger fines for swearing?

Maybe they should spend their time defending Morning Joe for his f-bomb.

This is all about setting the debate topics into issues that they can win.

What I would like is for the people who don’t listen to actually hear what they are paying for. Those people are the sponsors. When I and lots of other bloggers took the violent rhetoric to the sponsors and asked them if they wanted to keep supporting this lots of them choose not to. This is a Market-based solution. Of course they are only in favor of the market when they can win, when they are losing they use the courts and intimidation.

When you have a 5,000 watt public bullhorn in a limited broadcast spectrum there should be some responsibility to the public good. But they have chosen to attack one group of the public for “fun” and profit. How is that serving the public good? It would be nice if they were required to serve the public good like their license requires. If they don’t then they can either give up the license or (in a market based solution) pay a LOT more. If they complain about the high new fees say, “All you need to do to keep your license is to follow the guidelines you already agreed to. Serve the public good. And if you question what IS the public good then fine, we can have a discussion, but I’ll tell you what is NOT the public good, calling for the death of other people in the community who disagree with your viewpoints. I would also think that lying, defaming and smearing others might not be serving the public good.”