AL GORE AND THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE

It looks like I agreed with OwlGore for about minute this week when he criticized Americans' obsession with celebrity gossip. Well he is back to his liberal bit-government self again. This time he is joining the ranks of Fairness Doctrine supporters.

On CBS' "Early Show" with Harry Smith, Al Gore said, "the first concerns among defenders of democracy arose with radio. And that's why the equal time provision and the fairness doctrine and the public interest standard were put in place here. Those protections were almost completely removed during President Reagan's term."

There you have it. OwlGore feels that the government should set the "public interest standards" for radio shows like this one. Well, maybe I am a low man on the totem poll, but liberals loathe the conservative influence in talk radio. They just can't stand the fact that people like Hannity, Limbaugh, Ingraham, and even little old me can get up here and yap for hours and hours and they can't do a darned thing to limit what I talk about.

What is so different about what Hugo Chavez in doing in Venezuela? Weren't those pretty much the same words that Hugo used when he seized the nation's most popular television station, a station critical of his rule? Chavez said he was "democratizing" the public's airwaves? Gore excuses his desire to shut down talk radio by referring "defenders of democracy."

Al is losing his political touch here. Sure, there was no real secret that he, along with the rest of the left, wants to shut down talk radio. After all, every attempt at bringing a successful left-wing talk show to the airwaves has met with failure. So, the rule in government is if you can't beat 'em, shut 'em down. But just how stupid do you have to be to voice your threat to shut down talk radio just days after your leftist fellow traveler Hugh Chavez shut down an opposition television station in Venezuela? And then you use virtually the same language that Chavez used to justify your plans?

Poor Al Gore. Perhaps he was listening yesterday when I covered the news story about global warming on Neptune.