I’m sorry, did I miss the memo to every print, broadcast, and internet outlet which said they couldn’t accept Kerry or the DNC’s money to run an ad countering the Swiftboat Vet’s claims? I’m trying to remember when the FCC or the FEC said that the Kerry campaign wasn’t allowed to rebut the SBV?

So, because the Democrats ran two candidates so bad they couldn’t beat George W. Bush, broadcasters should be required to give valuable airtime to people no one wants to listen to.

Makes sense to me.

So all actions in time are a progression towards perfection, that ends at the current moment? Because in 2000, there were screams about the corporate media and their use of Republican talking points and outright lies (remember “I invented the Internet”?) that cost Gore the White House. And in 2004 it was the Swiftboaters that cost Kerry the election. But in 2008, because Obama wins–with the help of a terrible economy–I read you as saying, “The way it happened now is the way it always will happen, there can be no deviation from this, we’ve perfected the answer to hate radio and Faux News.”

But the thing is, we didn’t. The economy was the #1 issue on exit polls for more than three-quarters of people who voted; and if we didn’t have that, things might have been very, very different. And in any case, winning one, or even two against an extremely well-financed hate machine controlling the media doesn’t mean we’ve crushed the machine, or have the perfect reply to their propaganda.

Hate media is the worst, most dangerous threat to any self-defined free state. It was pioneered by Goebbels under Hitler. It was responsible for the genocide in Rwanda and Burundi, where nearly 1 million people died. The Fairness Doctrine is feared by people like Hannity for a very good reason: because it makes hate radio and its lies impossible to operate. That’s a very good reason to consider it. Feeding their paranoia…? Lol, anything will feed that! And the Fairness Doctrine is the best way to kill all the falsehoods they spread.

Simply put, if the Fairness Doctrine had been in place in 2004, the networks giving airtime to the Swiftboaters would have been required under law to provide rebuttal time to Kerry. I’m not saying he would have used it well. Knowing Kerry, he probably wouldn’t. But a lot of media that simply took the Swiftboaters at their word and ran with it because it was such exciting “news” would have had to allow for opposition correction. And that could have braked the entire downward spiral of the Kerry campaign.

The fairness doctrine is the bedtime story that Hannity and Limbaugh use to scare their child-like listeners and so, keep them listening and buying into get rich quick schemes and diet pill fads. Simple as that.

The fairness doctrine was fine in a three network universe but it’s no longer needed or even possible. Forget about it.

Any liberal or democrat who advocates reinstating the fairness doctrine is just feeding the right’s paranoia and victimhood while giving them an excuse to cry “liberal fascism.” All it would do is galvanize the hard cores when what we should be doing is continuing to deflate them.

To that end, try ridicule. It’s free, effective and more than well deserved.

And a LOT of money. If we’re going to bin the Fairness Doctrine, I suspect we’d probably throw in the towel on pushing candidates to limit themselves to public financing as well. Which means we had better be ready to pony up a lot of money — this is the first federal election in which I’ve ever donated money, and I ended up donating about 25% more (than I had intended.

In the arena of opinion, I believe in competition. While I support things like limiting media ownership, I don’t believe in government mandated balance. Would you like some right wing douchebag shoe-horned into Olbermann’s show? Would you want every other post on Dailykos or OW.com given over to a right wing idiot? No.

We can compete. We don’t need the gov’t to intervene to compete.

Could you explain what was so bad about the Fairness Doctrine? It seems like people actually didn’t see the media as so biased in favor of liberals when we had it, yet the right is extremely opposed to it. I don’t see how it kills talk radio to require that the host have a guest from each side of the issue.

They have enormous money
We have more.

they have a large audience
We’ve got a similar audience, in the blogosphere, Huffpo, etc.

especially in rural areas–where McSame did statistically better than Obama
No offense, but la-dee-fucking-dah. They have the super-rural areas. We have the suburbs, we have the exurbs, we have the cities. They own areas of stagnation, we have the America that is growing.

but if you honestly don’t know what hate radio is or what it’s done to the US since Reagan’s FCC opened the airwaves up to corporate monopolies and shut down the Fairness Doctrine, you owe it to yourself to review it
I deal with it every single day at my day job. I know far more about the right’s media infrastructure than the average person.

Look, pardon me if I’m being an ass, but we just won the White House. I’m not interested in still being a nervous nelly. I dont believe in gov mandated competition in the press, I think we can do fine competing in the arena of ideas. They have Rush, we have the blogs. They have Fox, we’ve got Huffpo. We won this round, we won’t rest on our laurels and we will beat them again.

But we don’t need any rending of garments.

Oliver, they aren’t crushed. They have enormous money, they have a large audience, especially in rural areas–where McSame did statistically better than Obama–and they have the malignant desire to turn as much of the nation as they can against the new administration.

Come on: you know they’ve done it before. I’m far less of a fan of Kerry than I am of Obama, but did a good look at what the Swiftboaters did in miniature to The Lord of Sleep. Obama is stronger, smarter, and has a better team, but there are more than two dozen hate radio producers and literally hundreds of radio stations carrying that muck. Not to mention Faux News, always willing to lie about whatever Obama said.

We can’t just sit on our hands and let the good times roll. We have a chance now to stop the hate at the source–before it encourages yet-another person to bomb a women’s center, lynch an Asian, black or gay. The election was a bold first step–but we’ve got a ways to go.

Feel free to disagree, but if you honestly don’t know what hate radio is or what it’s done to the US since Reagan’s FCC opened the airwaves up to corporate monopolies and shut down the Fairness Doctrine, you owe it to yourself to review it. If you do know all about this, I admit to finding myself puzzled over your attitude. No offense meant.

Top right: Roger Ailes, creator of Fox News.
Bottom right: Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox, NY Post, WSJ, etc.