After reading this report, our friend Kate offers some thoughts and provokes some liberal responses. Note that the authors are disturbed by the predominance of conservative talkers and assume that government should try to do something about it. In thir view, the predominance of conservative talkers is evidence of market failure, the solution for which is, in effect, to invite members of the local community (read: MoveOn.org and its clones) to participate actively in the renewal of broadcasting licenses.
Scary, no? And a glimpse of what we can expect, should there be a Democratic Administration in 2009, no?
Update: See this NRO editorial for more.
In fairness to the Democrats, many Republicans have been saying similar things of late. (Lott, Chertoff, etc.) I get the feeling that shutting up conservative voices is one of the increasingly large number of things which the people in DC, of both parties, agree on.
John,
You've given us only two examples from the Republican party, and Chertoff's primary identity is bureaucrat, not Republican. I don't even know that he IS a Republican. The reflexive tendency to blame both parties about equally for things is almost always a substitute, a shoddy substitute, for the facts.
Joe, a glimpse of what we can expect, yes. I had half expected some outraged response as in, "How could anyone think liberals would be in favor of the suppression of free speech!" Yet not one did. The patient explanations of why suppressing conservative talk radio was more like inhibiting the shouting of "Fire!" in a crowded auditorium were very kind. Yet, they left me wondering, once again, what "liberal" means in the modern political context.
Thank you for bringing this up here.
Personally I'm in favor of letting the market decide, as per the declining ratings of Fox News and the slooooooooowly elevating ones of Air America.
Still to be fair to liberals, after years of conservatives telling them that every time you express your opinion you're a traitor helping the terrorists, you might want to put the brakes on. Just sayin'.
The problem is that the opinion's expressed by many Democrats can help embolden terrorists and do. Sometimes you hear the Democrat/Liberal echo in the terrorists' own words.