RETURN OF THE "FAIRNESS" DOCTRINE

I'm no psychic, but I saw this coming from way back.  From the National Ledger:

Fairness Doctrine:  The Plan to Silence Conservatives

Memphis, Tennessee: Media reform sounds like a good cause. But the gathering here of more than 2,000 activists turned out to be an effort to push the Democratic Party further to the left and get more "progressive" voices in the media, while proposing to use the power of the federal government to silence conservatives.

In short, triumphant liberals now want to consolidate and expand their power.

Several speakers, including Senator Bernie Sanders and Rep. Maurice Hinchey, declared that they think Congress should use a new federal "fairness doctrine" to target conservative speech on television and radio.

But while conservatives are not ashamed to be conservatives, because of the popularity of their ideas about freedom, a strong military, economic growth and traditional values, the liberals at this conference wanted desperately to avoid the use of the term "liberal," apparently because of its association with failed domestic, social and foreign policies. They described themselves and their causes as "progressive."

If this conference has an impact, and the participants were called upon to put pressure on the media and Congress, we should expect increasing references to the term "progressive" in coverage of controversial liberal initiatives, including the proposed agenda for "media reform." The only question is when congressional liberals get enough nerve to aggressively push this authoritarian attempt to muzzle their political opponents.

Free speech threatens one-party rule.  Just ask the GOP.  And the Dems, one election shy of a return to their "rightful" place as ruling party, won't stand for anything that threatens their grip on power.  If they regain the White House in '08, look for more legal limits to be placed on free speech, especially talk radio and the blogosphere.  If you have something to say about that, you'd better say it now.  While you still can legally do so.