Sean D. Parnell, the President of the Center for Competitive Politics - a Free Speech Alliance member - today at Red State does a magnificent job dismantling serially failed liberal radio talk show host Bill Press's woefully lame arguments for equal time for Leftists on the airwaves. 

Though Press swears no one is calling for the Censorship Doctrine, also mis-known as the "Fairness" Doctrine. 

Though Press himself did exactly that in an op-ed on February 9^th. 

And got two Democratic Senators on the record on HIS radio show (with listeners numbering in the tens) to do the same.

And has apparently forgotten the litany of other Donkey elected officials who have expressed the same sentiment to censor.  (There are many more than I care to build links for in this brief missive.)

That being said,

As has been mentioned here before, the Media Research Center is heading up the Free Speech Alliance (FSA).  Made up thus far of sixty-five organizations, the FSA is dedicated to protecting the freedom of speech of all practitioners of conservative and Christian talk radio from any and all government regulatory censorship.

Well here is an excellent piece by Peter Ferrara of the American Civil Rights Union (ACRU), a Free Speech Alliance member organization, that appeared in Sunday's Washington Times. 

This essay captures perfectly the other half of the argument we are making.  Just as Rush, Sean, Mark et. Al. have the First Amendment-guaranteed Freedom to Speak, We the People have the First Amendement-guaranteed Freedom to Listen. 

The Left's attempts to take away the former inherently abridge the latter too.

We will at this point allow Mr. Ferrara to speak expertly for himself.

Syndicated talk radio host Ed Schultz, with a listnership numbering in the tens, is keenly aware of Media Research Center Founder and President and NewsBusters.org Publisher Brent Bozell's Wednesday public statement.In which Bozell predicted Schultz would quickly prove to be yet another embarrassment for NBC should MSNBC follow through with their notion to give Schultz a television show, thereby - somehow - managing to make their already obnoxiously liberal line-up even more so. Schultz it seems was quite irritated, as he returned to the topic on four separate occassions during his minimalist-audience show yesterday. The transcripts of the said references:

Notes: This first appeared in today's Human Events.   We first reported this on March 11th.

A Gust of Hot Air (America)

It's official -- what we the sentient public, doctor and dentist patients in waiting rooms across America and the eight diehards still subscribing have long known: Newsweek is a horrendously biased left-wing rag. 

Newsweek announced on Tuesday that they are partnering with liberal radio uber-failure Air America to syndicate their show Newsweek On Air.  They are the first outside "talent" to join with the newly rechristened Air America Media (AAM). 

Longtime Newsweek On Air producer and host and Newsweek Contributing Editor David Alpern said of the conjoining, "AAM Syndication is a great partner for Newsweek On Air. We look forward to maintaining the same high-quality content, balance, and listener interest that has won our program various awards and a place on so many station schedules, some for nearly all of its 27 years on the air."

After more than a quarter century of their "balanced" programming, I would venture to guess that most of you have never heard of Newsweek On Air.  This state of anonymity will likely continue with their Air America Media partnership.  It seems they sought to collaborate with an entity whose listenership mirrors their readership - minimal and declining rapidly.

Law may allow preemptive, premature rescission of broadcast licenses

By Any Other Name Still Stings

Yesterday by a whopping 87-11 vote, the Senate added as a rider to the passed DC voting rights bill the Broadcaster Freedom Act (BFA).  The BFA, if also passed by the House and signed by the President, would kill once and for all the Censorship Doctrine -- also mis-known as the "Fairness" Doctrine. 

Much Conservative celebration ensued.  However, the revelry is misplaced and premature.  It means only that the Left means to destroy Conservative and Christian talk radio by other means.

Because another rider was added via a party-line 57-41 vote.  Written by Illinois Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, S.160's Purpose is "To encourage and promote diversity in communication media ownership, and to ensure that the public airwaves are used in the public interest."

Free Speech and Free Markets?  Nah.

Kudos and our sympathy to Michael Calderone at the Politico, who has to listen to a lot of really bad radio to get these quotes. 

First it was Senators Debbie Stabenow and Tom Harkin, now Clinton.

Clinton was appearing on the liberal Mario Solis Marich (who? Exactly) radio show (audio here).  The censorship discussion went as follows:

The Senator Speaks for Herself

UPDATE: We have been reminded that Senator Stabenow's husband, Thomas Athans, is the co-founder of the liberal TalkUSA Radio network and is now the Executive Vice-President of liberal Air America.  Liberal talk radio has of course failed miserably every time it has been tried, all the while watching it's conservative counterpart's success soar. 

Which might lead one to believe that Senator Stabenow, in addition to her zealous will to slam the fist of government down upon her opponents, has some business skin in the game as well.  If you can't beat 'em, censor 'em. 

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Michael Calderone in today's Politico reports on the latest liberal politician -- Michigan Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow -- openly touting their intent to silence their talk radio opposition with a reinstitution of the Fairness Doctrine. 

"Whether it’s called the Fairness Standard (sic), whether it’s called something else – I absolutely think it’s time to be bringing accountability to the airwaves."

Senator Stabenow was speaking on the air with liberal talk radio host Bill Press and to his eleven listeners nationwide. She insisted that she "think(s) it’s absolutely time to pass a standard" and indicated she had "already had some discussions with colleagues" about Fairness "Standard" hearings and that she "feel(s) like that’s gonna happen. Yep." 

Mr. Calderone delivers us the exchange (audio here):

For at least ten seconds there, it appeared Margaret Warner thought PBS stood for the Palestinian Broadcast Service.

On last night's NewsHour Ms. Warner, whilst interviewing Israel's Ambassador to the United States Sallai Meridor, posed one of the dumbest questions in the long, dumb history of broadcast journalism. 

So banal was her query that there was for nearly five seconds the most pregnant of pauses, broken finally by Ambassador Meridor's bemused and chagrined response.  Which Ms. Warner followed with another question of nearly equal asinine force. 

Ms. Warner was fairly addled throughout (transcript below the fold), but nothing else she said rose quite to the heights of foolishness as did this.  We have edited in after the exchange an earlier statement from Ambassador Meridor that we think pretty much sums it all up.

With Obama-Blagojevich, and many other Dems in distress, the media has suddenly lost interest in the subject

Editor's Note: This first appeared in today's Human Events.

When It's the Democrats, the Media Falls Silent

During the 2006 mid-term elections, the news world was saturated with talk of a GOP "Culture of Corruption," a Democratic slogan repeated incessantly by the traditional media. The press cast three bad Congressmen and a single scamming lobbyist as representative of an entire Party gone bad, and their incessant drumbeat helped drive the GOP out of power.

Meanwhile, one prominent Democrat after another has been tinged with scandal, but the media has yet to stamp their Party as "Culturally Corrupt."