Is Rush Limbaugh next?

Conservatives fear that Don Imus is the first casualty in a liberal-led media purge to force right-wing talkers off the air.

By Alex Koppelman

Read more: Politics, Dick Morris, Rush Limbaugh, News, David Brock, Alex Koppelman

April 16, 2007 | WASHINGTON -- First they came for Don Imus. And now they'll come for Rush.

At least, that was the fear at the Free Congress Foundation on April 13, where a panel discussion of an ancient broadcasting regulation quickly turned into a discussion of Don Imus and how his firing might portend a similar fate for some of the right's best-known media personalities. In the absence of any compelling evidence, participants in the latest of the conservative think tank's occasional Next Conservatism Forum series managed to convince themselves that the Fairness Doctrine, a rule that was scrapped by the Federal Communications Commission 20 years ago, was poised for a comeback, and was about to become a weapon in a liberal jihad against the right wing's freedom of speech.

In fact, the prominent conservatives, addressing a crowd of 30 on the ground floor of a Washington row house, described what sounded like a conspiracy. Panelist Ken Blackwell, formerly Ohio's secretary of state and the Republican candidate for governor last fall, said Imus was "not a conservative" and that "the left has sacrificed one of their own to give them a platform to go after true conservative talk show hosts." Cliff Kincaid, of the conservative media watchdog Accuracy in Media, said the Imus firing had been a revelation. "It wasn't exactly clear to me how [liberals] intended to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, but I think now with the Imus affair, we know ... [And it's a] short leap from firing Imus to going after Rush Limbaugh."

Established in 1949, the Fairness Doctrine was an FCC regulation that required broadcasters to give balance to opposing viewpoints in any opinion programming. Its abolition by the FCC during the Reagan administration is widely credited with making the explosion of conservative talk radio possible.

With the return of the Democrats to power in Congress, conservatives have become concerned that the Fairness Doctrine might be on its way back. William S. Lind, director of the Free Congress Foundation's Center for Cultural Conservatism and moderator of the April 13 panel discussion, said the choice of topics had been occasioned by an "emergency" -- the Fairness Doctrine's seemingly imminent return.

But fear of its return isn't restricted to the Free Congress Foundation. Since Imus' firing, conservative pundits have been painting a picture of an entire ideological community under siege.

In an article April 13, Byron York, White House correspondent for the conservative National Review, asked the question, "What's next for the activists who called for Don Imus' head," then answered himself, "Two words: Fairness Doctrine." York's colleague at the National Review, radio host Mark Levin, wrote a post in which he said that "there is now a campaign underway ... to force conservative talk show hosts from radio ... It appears we have a rather sleazy effort afoot to silence the one broadcast venue the Left can't control." Attributing this effort to liberal media watchdog Media Matters, Levin linked to conservative blog Sweetness & Light -- Sweetness & Light, which wrote that Media Matters president and CEO David Brock "jumps on any chance to try to control free speech in this country." It added that "if Media Matters has its way the only people who will be allowed to use the public airwaves will be Messrs. Brock, [George] Soros, [Noam] Chomsky, Ms. Hillary Clinton and other officially approved Democrats." On NewsBusters, the blog of conservative media watchdog Media Research Center, Dan Riehl wondered, "Does Get-Imus movement foretell Fairness Doctrine reinstatement?"

But at the forum, conservatives were already thinking of ways to fight back. From the audience, Wes Vernon, a former broadcast journalist and now a conservative commentator, said he believes "the best way to combat this is public outrage. Al Sharpton knows how to stir it up, Jesse Jackson knows how to stir it up ... There ought to be some kind of effort to raise money to put ads on the air and in the newspapers alerting people about this."

Dick Morris, the political consultant and pundit who managed Bill Clinton's 1996 reelection campaign, said it came down to language.

"Let's try to replace the word 'Fairness Doctrine,'" he told the audience. "Vocabulary is so important in politics." Morris gave as examples the phrases "right to work" and "prevailing wage," and jokingly offered a free trip to Hoboken, N.J. for the person who could come up with a new formulation for the debate. Morris himself seconded Lind's suggestion that the Fairness Doctrine be rebranded the "Unfairness Doctrine," and added that the current absence of any regulation ought to be called the "Freedom Doctrine." In an interview with Salon after the discussion, Morris explained that when searching for language like this, he's looking for a "positive message" to deliver to voters, and that he rejected an audience member's suggestion of the "Hypocrisy Doctrine" because "the concept of hypocrisy is, 'I'm admitting that I'm bad, but you're bad too.'"

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