Great article in City Journal by Brian C. Anderson: The Plot to Shush Rush and O’Reilly

The rise of alternative media—political talk radio in the eighties, cable news in the nineties, and the blogosphere in the new millennium—has broken the liberal monopoly over news and opinion outlets. The Left understands acutely the implications of this revolution, blaming much of the Democratic Party’s current electoral trouble on the influence of the new media’s vigorous conservative voices. Instead of fighting back with ideas, however, today’s liberals quietly, relentlessly, and illiberally are working to smother this flourishing universe of political discourse under a tangle of campaign-finance and media regulations. Their campaign represents the most sustained attack on free political speech in the United States since the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts. Though Republicans have the most to lose in the short run, all Americans who care about our most fundamental rights and the civic health of our democracy need to understand what’s going on—and resist it.

Rush Limbaugh has been speaking of this for as long as I have been listening. The rise of talk radio came from the repeal of the “Fairness Doctrine“. No longer forced by law to give equal time to political campaigns, with certain caveats, station managers could program radio with programs people wanted to listen to for a change. Rush if often credited with the rebirth of Talk Radio.

You can do a search on “repeal of the fairness doctrine” and find all sorts of opinion for and against. As you will find, there are a number of forces on the left that would love seeing something like it made into law. The left and the media like this because they know this would shut down a lot of the talk radio programs out there. If you asked why, it is because station managers would be forced to give equal time to both sides of an issue. If you are familiar with both the left and the right side of the radio, you will certainly know that one does way better than the other. If station managers are forced to broadcast shows that no one would listen to, they would just as soon shut down.

Opinion Alert: The left is the advocate of free speech. As long as it is the speech, they want to hear and agree with. I could be wrong.

O.K. folks, this being my first post and all, it would be nice as always to get your feedback. I have thick skin and can take a beating along with the best of them. Try to be nice though.