I came across this from an email and said, “No way.”
I fact checked it, both because I always try to be honest and because I don’t like looking like an idiot.
It sounded too preposterous, too disturbingly fascist, to possibly be true. No way Senator Chuck Schumer said that, right?
Wrong. (and at this point I’d do a Sarah Palin impression and ask, “You don’t mind if I call you ‘Schmuck,’ do you?”
In an interview that occurred on November 4 – you know, election day, when people ostensibly get to celebrate one of their precious rights to free speech in the form of voting for whom they choose – Sen. Schmuck Schumer (D-NY) had this little bit to say:
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday defended the so-called Fairness Doctrine in an interview on Fox News, saying, “I think we should all be fair and balanced, don’t you?”
Schumer’s comments echo other Democrats’ views on reviving the Fairness Doctrine, which would require radio stations to balance conservative hosts with liberal ones.Asked if he is a supporter of telling radio stations what content they should have, Schumer used the fair and balanced line, claiming that critics of the Fairness Doctrine are being inconsistent.
“The very same people who don’t want the Fairness Doctrine want the FCC [Federal Communications Commission] to limit pornography on the air. I am for that… But you can’t say government hands off in one area to a commercial enterprise but you are allowed to intervene in another. That’s not consistent.”
In 2007, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), a close ally of Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) told The Hill, “It’s time to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine. I have this old-fashioned attitude that when Americans hear both sides of the story, they’re in a better position to make a decision.”
Senate Rules Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) last year said, “I believe very strongly that the airwaves are public and people use these airwaves for profit. But there is a responsibility to see that both sides and not just one side of the big public questions of debate of the day are aired and are aired with some modicum of fairness.”
Conservatives fear that forcing stations to make equal time for liberal talk radio would cut into profits so significantly that radio executives would opt to scale back on conservative radio programming to avoid escalating costs and interference from the FCC.
They also note that conservative radio shows has been far more successful than liberal ones.
Let’s try to take this fascist idiocy in order, shall we?
1) Sen. Schumer defended the Fairness Doctrine saying, “I think we should all be fair and balanced, don’t you?”
Well, yes I do, Schmuck. That’s why I demand that every television program likewise be forced to embrace the fairness doctrine. That means that conservatives have a voice during the broadcasts of ABC‘s Charles Gibson, CBS‘ Katie Couric, and NBC‘s Brian Williams. Remember how all three anchors accompanied Barack Obama on his foreign trip, but refused to accompany John McCain on any of his three foreign trips? That sort of “unfairness” will be ended by law. “Fairness” means equal time for both candidates.
It also means equal POSITIVE and NEGATIVE time for both candidates, doesn’t it? DOESN’T IT???
The Center for Media and Public Affairs demonstrated that the “Big 3 networks [are] still fixated on ‘first love’ Obama“:
The “big three” broadcast networks – NBC, ABC and CBS – remain captivated with Sen. Barack Obama, according to a study of campaign coverage released Tuesday by the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University.
Numbers tell all: 61 percent of the stories that appeared on the networks between Aug. 23 and Sept. 30 were positive toward the Democratic Party. In contrast, just 39 percent of the stories covering Republicans were favorable.
That doesn’t seem “fair,” does it, Schmuck? The Media Research Center adds to that sad state of affairs for the mainstream media:
A comprehensive analysis of every evening news report by the NBC, ABC and CBS television networks on Barack Obama since he came to national prominence concludes coverage of the Illinois senator has “bordered on giddy celebration of a political ‘rock star’ rather than objective newsgathering.”
The new study by the Media Research Center, which tracks bias in the media, is summarized on the organization’s website, where the full report also has been published. It reveals that positive stories about Obama over that time outnumbered negative stories 7-1, and significant controversies such as Obama’s relationship with a convicted Chicago man have been largely ignored.
And the most recent survey from the Project for Excellence in Journalism, “Winning the Media Campaign: How the Press Reported the 2008 Presidential General Election” – Sep 6 – Oct 16, tells us that:
In short, Obama got nearly 3 times more positive coverage than McCain, while McCain got nearly twice as much negative coverage as Obama. Does that sound “fair” to you? How was McCain supposed to run against that kind of media onslaught?
Why not take a look at the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, Schmuck? “Winning the Media Campaign: How the Press Reported the 2008 General Election.” That study found that in the media overall—a sample of 43 outlets studied in the six weeks following the conventions through the last debate—Barack Obama’s coverage was somewhat more positive than negative (36% vs. 29%), while John McCain’s, in contrast, was substantially negative (57% vs. 14% positive). The report concluded that this, in significant part, reflected and magnified the horse race and direction of the polls.
And there was outright deception going on. Remember that reporter who literally invented “hate speech” allegedly by a McCain supporter against Barack Obama? It took a Secret Service investigation to prove that the reporter was lying. And the media consistently portrayed the McCain campaign as being “more negative” than the Obama campaign, when a study revealed that the exact opposite was the case. Does THAT seem “fair” to you, Schmuck?
And did ABC journalist Michael Malone’s damning description of a dangerous liberal bias that literally threatens the Constitution serve to prove to you that the “Fairness Doctrine” needs to be applied to liberal media, or was it just one more expression of formerly-free speech that you’d like to stamp out, Schmuck?
If none of that sunk in, just let me say two more words: Chris Matthews.
Nothing would be better for conservatives if a “Fairness Doctrine” were actually applied consistently across the media spectrum. But that isn’t what you want, is it, Schmuck? No – you want to stifle the ONE media outlet of radio that has a larger conservative presence while utterly ignoring the vastly larger television media presence that totally caters to liberals?
It’s too bad we don’t force the Fairness Doctrine on you, Schmuck. Because you’d be gone.
2) Then we come to Schmuck Schumer’s simply staggeringly fascist statement: “The very same people who don’t want the Fairness Doctrine want the FCC [Federal Communications Commission] to limit pornography on the air. I am for that… But you can’t say government hands off in one area to a commercial enterprise but you are allowed to intervene in another. That’s not consistent.”
Let us consider the man’s progression of thought. Schmuck is in favor of limiting pornography on the air. And conservative thought is analogous to pornography. Therefore he is in favor of limiting conservative thought on the air.
So we have a moral equivalence between pornography and conservative viewpoints. Cover your child’s ears, because I’m going to say the word “Republican!”
This is the kind of reasoning the Taliban and the most fanatic totalitarian Muslim thugs use to kill and imprison Christians for making mention of their Christianity. They simply declare it evil, and ban it. This is a totalitarian tactic. It is a giant step toward the ugliest political philosophies that the human mind has ever envisioned.
Schmuck is something of a fascist, plain and simple. He wants to crush his opposition by declaring anything that opposes his political ideology as “pornography” and “limiting” it right off the airwaves.
I’ve had a couple people upset that I use the word “Nazi.” Let me tell you something: if liberals would only stop acting like Nazis, I’d gladly quit using the term.
When Republicans were in charge, do you remember them using their political power to attempt to crush their opposition? Do you remember a “Fairness Doctrine” that was geared to pin ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, PBS, and other mainstream media outlets like bugs to the wall, while simultarnously protecting racio advocates such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham? Republicans would never even conceive of something so fundamentally unconstitutional, undemocratic, or so blatantly totalitarian. So why are so many Democrats doing it?
There is something terribly wrong, here.
I remember encountering a crazy person on the sidewalk. She just went off on me and started ranting in my face. I immediately realized that she was mentally unhinged, and that there was no point attempting to reason with her. I simply stood there and waited for her to finish her tirade and move off.
That’s what it’s like trying to reason with too many liberals nowadays.
Anyone who thinks like Schmuck Schumer is morally insane, pure and simple.
Tags: ABC, bias, Brian Williams, CBS, Charles Gibson, Chris Matthews, Chuck Schumer, fairness, Fairness Doctrine, FCC, inconsistent, Katie Couric, Media, NBC, reinstitute
November 10, 2008 at 2:33 am
Many liberals are morally insane. But it serves them well. The propaganda machine works well. Now the mantra is, “Obama will govern from the center!” I guess you just keep repeating something over and over again and it is accepted as truth by people who want it to be so.
Who cares about objective, provable facts? They just get in the way when your trying to manipulate and control the whole wide world!
November 10, 2008 at 2:42 am
Michael,
The below link has nothing to do with above post. I wanted you to see it.
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/fischer/081106
September 1, 2009 at 9:24 pm
“I think we should all be fair and balanced, don’t you?”
Sounds good to me, so let’s have schools teach Intelligent Design along with evolution and see which students find more plausible. Oh, you’ll pass on my suggestion? I thought you wanted to be fair and balanced?
September 2, 2009 at 12:16 am
That’s a good way to put it, David.
Schumer is the kind of guy who wants his “fair and balanced” presentation to flow in one and only one direction – theirs.