During a radio interview on KKOB Radio in New Mexico this week, Sen. Jeff Bingaman, the liberal Democrat U.S. Senator from that state, admitted on-air what many of us have known for awhile now:  Democrats want to resurrect the “Fairness Doctrine”, an antiquated, rickety FCC regulation from 1949 that was abolished in 1987 following numerous unanimous Supreme Court rulings that it clearly shredded the First Amendment.

This speech-suppressing nightmare, as Bingaman knows, would destroy talk radio in America, pure and simple.  Radio companies are never going to be forced to mandate 50% conservative views and 50% liberal views, if for no other reason that that means that a radio station would lose money 50% of the time.  Like it or not, liberal radio hosts fail miserably in the spoken word format.  The most prominent, well-organized effort to create a liberal talk radio network called “Air America” has bombed.  They went bankrupt.  Liberals keep trying to fund it and keep Air America afloat, but it’s flushing good money down the drain after bad.

And so how do Democrats silence all of us conservatives on the radio?

Legislate us into silence.  Bring back this ridiculous FCC policy which would force radio companies to abandon a format that proves too costly and complicated to run.

As Sen. Bingaman was calmly explaining to the shocked radio host on KKOB why he wants the talk radio format destroyed, he said that the Fairness Doctrine has “served us well for many years.”

He knows full well that by the time Rush Limbaugh came along and saved AM radio and talk radio because hugely successful, the Fairness Doctrine was long gone. 

Served us well?   Nice try, Senator.

The fact is that Democrats cannot stand dissent.  Despite having a news media in its hip pocket writing silly stories about Sarah Palin’s clothing budget, they can’t tolerate millions of Americans enjoying and participating in a thriving, successful medium like talk radio.  They are threatened by us.  And since they can’t beat us in the free market (hey Al Franken, how many of your paychecks bounced before you finally called it quits?), they’ll attempt to get the government to shut us down.

A friend of mine once told me, “Oh Mike, don’t worry about the Fairness Doctrine, the American people will never stand for such an outrageous attempt to destroy the Constitution.  It’ll never happen.”

If the Democrats win on November 4^th, the American people can complain all they want.  Even with pitchforks and torches, bitter Democrats in Washington will prevail. 

Powerful Democrats like John Kerry, Dick Durbin and Nancy Pelosi have already advocated for the return of the Fairness Doctrine. 

They just haven’t been as blatant about it as the America-hating Sen. Jeff Bingaman from New Mexico.