“Now what?” It’s the repeating question posed to Beetle Bailey by his hapless General Amos T. Halftrack.

Now, it’s the underlying question implicit in the post-Romney seething of conservative talk radio hosts and our listeners: Now what?

Well, all of us who know that talk radio has saved the democracy are looking for a compelling reason to get serious about seeing a Republican, even John McCain, in the White House.

In case you forgot, here is one compelling reason: The Fairness Doctrine!

Every other rationale to hold your nose and vote Republican pales in consideration. Sure, all of us in talk radio can continue being preoccupied on tangential issues, big or small, principled or petty. (For example, although I strongly support McCain, I strongly agree with Mark Levin’s sharp reaction to Phil Graham’s gloating that conservatives should get on the McCain train while tickets are available. The McCain campaign should quickly send Phil back to Texas before Conan O’Brien pulls the Phil Graham clips out of his archives and makes a fool out of him a second time.)

At any rate, a Democratic president and congress equals the assured resurgence of the so-called “Fairness Doctrine,” the most alarming assault on free speech in our lifetime.

If you are in doubt or denial, listen to or read to Bill Moyers’ interview with Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (D-NY). Here is the PBS synopsis of the interview on December 17, 2004:

For the nearly 20 years she has been in Congress, Louise Slaughter (D-NY) has fought for fairness on the airwaves. Her latest legislation on the topic is HR 4710, "The MEDIA Act," which would reinstate the fairness doctrine and ensure that broadcasters present discussions of conflicting views on issues of public importance.

And if that interview doesn’t send chills up your spine, then Moyers’ interview with the director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center Kathleen Hall Jamieson will do the trick:

BILL MOYERS: [speaking of Internet and talk radio] I covered the campaign in 1984 when Geraldine Ferraro was the Democratic vice-presidential running mate. I do not recall these kinds of attacks on Geraldine Ferraro. There's something, as you say, unique in this present experience.

KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON: Or there's another possibility. There's a possibility that these kinds of attacks have always been there, but they were never posted in public space before. … But perhaps we didn't have any way of seeing them.

Perhaps the comments that you're reprising from public space elsewhere, largely on cable or on talk radio, were actually out there but we only had network evening news as a way of getting access to the political world. And they never would have gotten into that forum. So it's possible that nothing has changed except our access to a window on a part of a world. And that we haven't found a way to create boundaries around it and say within it, "Don't you want to have a different kind of discourse here? Do you really want to conventionalize this?"

I plead guilty to wanting to “conventionalize” free speech.

Now what, my friends? Do we really want to risk seeing someone like Tom Brokaw be confirmed as the Deputy Director of the FCC Bureau of Media Fairness? Do we want to risk putting a President in place that wants the federal government to dictate the appropriate “boundaries” for political speech?

We better get a ticket on the McCain train unless we want to get slaughtered by the good Congresswoman from New York—while Bill Moyers gloats with approval.