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Will: Obama Victory Would Bring Fairness Doctrine Back
Broadcasting & Cable, ^ | September 18, 2008 | John Eggerton

Posted on 09/18/2008 10:59:00 AM PDT by Berlin_Freeper

The return of the Fairness Doctrine continues to be invoked as an argument against giving Democrats more control of the government.

In an op-ed in The Washington Post Thursday, conservative columnist George Will warned that "unless [Sen. John] McCain [R-Ariz.] is president, the government will reinstate the … misnamed Fairness Doctrine."

The doctrine, which was pronounced unconstitutional by the Federal Communications Commission in 1987, required broadcasters to cover both sides of controversial issues. Its decline was matched by the rise of rough-and-tumble political talk radio and the vast majority conservative, led by Rush Limbaugh.

Will sees that format threatened by a Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) administration teamed with a Democratic-controlled Congress, arguing instead for the benefits of divided government. "Liberals, not satisfied with their domination of academia, Hollywood and most of the mainstream media, want to kill talk radio, where liberals have been unable to dent conservative dominance," he wrote.

Obama, via his press secretary, told B&C in June that the candidate does not support reinstituting the Fairness Doctrine and sees the issue as "a distraction from the conversation we should be having about opening up the airwaves and modern communications to as many diverse viewpoints as possible."

But more recently, a campaign surrogate told a C-SPAN TV audience Obama had not taken a position on the doctrine.

(Excerpt) Read more at broadcastingcable.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2008; brownshirts; censorship; democrats; elections; fairnessdoctrine; hushrush; nobama08; obama; obamabiden; talkradio
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1 posted on 09/18/2008 10:59:01 AM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
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To: Berlin_Freeper
What Obama victory

He's so desperate he's telling his true believers to get in their neighobors' faces about what racists they are if they don't vote for The One.

That's better than any thousand attack ads McPalin could run.

2 posted on 09/18/2008 11:02:48 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Public policy should never become the captive of a scientific-technological elite. -- Ike Eisenhower)
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To: Berlin_Freeper

I get infuriated at the Orwellian term “Fairness Doctrine.”

It is the the “Republican/Conservative/Independent/Libertarian Free Speech Thug Cessation by Marxists Doctrine”


3 posted on 09/18/2008 11:02:50 AM PDT by FormerACLUmember (When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.)
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To: Berlin_Freeper
Obama... sees the issue as "a distraction from the conversation we should be having about opening up the airwaves and modern communications to as many diverse viewpoints as possible."

Uhhhh... that's what ALL the communists say about the "Fairness" Doctrine.
4 posted on 09/18/2008 11:04:14 AM PDT by snowrip (Liberal? YOU ARE A SOCIALIST WITH NO RATIONAL ARGUMENT.)
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To: Berlin_Freeper

5 posted on 09/18/2008 11:07:02 AM PDT by Bobalu (Obama cannot win without the kind of people that Palin appeals to.)
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To: Berlin_Freeper

wouldn’t it be something if the evening news had to give conservative balance to their leftist talking points?


6 posted on 09/18/2008 11:07:35 AM PDT by Archytekt
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Amen. Let Bambi go negative and just keep putting a microphone in front of Biden.

The looney left is making McCain’s ads for him!

LOL


7 posted on 09/18/2008 11:09:04 AM PDT by incredulous joe
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To: Berlin_Freeper

VRWC would need to set up offshore internet “pirate” sources to overcome this. How far off the coast would Rush need to get to be outside the jurisdiction of Baraq?
Sort of like Google’s “data barges”


8 posted on 09/18/2008 11:14:07 AM PDT by nascarnation
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To: Berlin_Freeper

It should be called the Unfairness Doctrine.


9 posted on 09/18/2008 11:17:20 AM PDT by Red Steel
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To: nascarnation

We’ve had a taste of freedom. We’re not going to let it be taken away again.


10 posted on 09/18/2008 11:17:56 AM PDT by SlowBoat407 (Obama will give us enough hope to hang ourselves.)
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To: Berlin_Freeper

Of course he will try to reimpose the Fairness Doctrine to silence anyone who doesn’t agree with him. If you don’t believe the Democratic Party leaders on their desire to impose it all you need to do is listen to his comments about how voters are listening to bad sources of information and the two attacks he directed his followers to make against WGN when they had guests that he didn’t like. The two attacks are cyber versions of the tactics used by the Brown Shirts prior to taking power and by Woodrow Wilson’s people when he was in power. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Democrats and Barack Obama try to install the systems that Woodrow Wilson wanted in WWI to prevent opposition to his programs.


11 posted on 09/18/2008 11:21:48 AM PDT by airedale ( XZ)
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To: Berlin_Freeper

So how many conservatives anchors would be added to the alphabet networks readings of the nightly news?


12 posted on 09/18/2008 11:23:04 AM PDT by weegee (Obama's a uniter?"I want you to argue with them (friends,neighbors,Republicans) & get in their face")
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To: FormerACLUmember

Don’t blame this on George Orwell. Call it what it is, Stalinist. George Orwell’s books were a crticism of Stalinists in the US and UK.


13 posted on 09/18/2008 11:24:42 AM PDT by weegee (Obama's a uniter?"I want you to argue with them (friends,neighbors,Republicans) & get in their face")
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To: Berlin_Freeper

If the “Fairnes Doctrine” is ever reinstituted in the future, its a guarantee that the battle will be settled in the federal courts. Maybe even reaching the SCOTUS. Call it what it is. The FD is an unconstitutional, anti-free speech political tool of the leftwing.


14 posted on 09/18/2008 11:31:37 AM PDT by Reagan Man (McCain Earned My Vote --- With Palin on the ticket, MOST conservatives should be satisfied.)
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To: Red Steel

“It should be called the Unfairness Doctrine.”

Why? Are you not aware that freedom is slavery.

My newspeak is double-plus good.


15 posted on 09/18/2008 11:45:47 AM PDT by swain_forkbeard (Rationality may not be sufficient, but it is necessary.)
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To: Red Steel

“It should be called the Unfairness Doctrine.”

Why? Are you not aware that freedom is slavery.

My newspeak is double-plus good.


16 posted on 09/18/2008 11:46:23 AM PDT by swain_forkbeard (Rationality may not be sufficient, but it is necessary.)
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To: Red Steel
It should be called the Unfairness Doctrine.

You have to figure every law the government proposes is the reverse of whatever it's named. The government could propose "Apple Pie Day" and I'd figure it was really "Cow Pie Day".

17 posted on 09/18/2008 11:48:49 AM PDT by 6SJ7 (Welcome PUMAs!)
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To: Berlin_Freeper

The airwaves are already ‘open’.

It’s just that Marxism doesn’t sell. So laws must be passed to cram it down our throats.


18 posted on 09/18/2008 11:50:07 AM PDT by bamahead (Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master. -- Sallust)
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To: Berlin_Freeper
If somehow the 'Fairness Doctrine' was instated at some point, then Conservatives & Republicans could invoke fairness in Big Media News Outlets, both in print and television.

We could demand Rush Limbaugh be given air time ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, NPR etc....

19 posted on 09/18/2008 11:53:49 AM PDT by TexasCajun
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To: Archytekt

wouldn’t it be something if the evening news had to give conservative balance to their leftist talking points?_____________________________

But that’s just it; The Fairness Doctrine would never be applied to the MSM. Afterall they don’t editorialize the news, they report it.

Folks, if Obama get’s in; prepare for The Fairness Doctrine.


20 posted on 09/18/2008 12:02:04 PM PDT by navymom1 (I support Free Speech. Defeat the Fairness Doctrine.)
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