First Amendment

When The Lowell Sun has an OpEd by Nat Hentoff I pay attention. Today's article "What happened to Joe Biden?" is a typical Nat Hentoff discussion of both free speech and of the responsibility of politicians to the voting public. I comment this article to one and all, especially if you care about the first amendment.

The article starts out talking about Senator Joe Biden as a "passionate practitioner, and defender, of free speech." Mr Hentoff then does on to talk about Senator Biden's interview with Orlando WFTV reporter/anchor Barbara West. This is the one where she asked him if Senator Obama was being a Marxist with his comment that he intends to "spread the wealth."

The upshot was that the Obama Campaign cut off WFTV from further interviews with Senators Obama and Biden and their wives. (Updated based upon a comment from one of my Brothers.)

Mr Hentoff then segues into the so-called "Fairness Doctrine" and people calling for it to be reinstated. But, being the thorough and intellectually honest person that he is, Mr Hentoff then talks about the rest of us and the fact that many of us support this inaptly named form of censorship.

The lesson for all of us is to understand the political package we are buying into. In the case of the "Fairness Doctrine" it is an effort by Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic legislators to push the likes of Rush Limbaugh off the air by requiring that stations provide approximately equal time to both the Democratic and the Republican points of view. The real hook here is that this rule applies only to radio and TV (and in the minds of some, the Internet). It does not apply to the liberal historic newspapers and news magazines. Worse, fair and balanced will be determined by the Administration in power, rather than by the market place.

The application of the Fairness Doctrine to the Internet would be not only difficult, but expensive, in terms of Government equipment and personnel. On the other hand, shutting down much of the freedom of comment on the Internet would do the trick. One hopes it never comes to that.

Regards -- Cliff