The Bluegrass and Beyond

With all of the public attention focused on President Barack Obama’s speech to the nation’s school children, I had to wonder: Did the adults learn anything?

Obama urged kids to study hard and not give up, even if they don’t like some classes or things are tough at home. He reminded students that each of them has special abilities, and it’s their responsibility to develop them.

The president acknowledged that, like many of us, he was “a little bit of a goof-off” when he was young. He told kids that success takes hard work, and nobody else will do it for them.

It was a speech that could have been delivered by any responsible leader, Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative.

AP Photo by Stew Milne

It was a pep talk about personal responsibility, not politics. But from the way the right-wing fringe and some Republican Party officials reacted to it beforehand, you would have thought Obama was planning to sprout horns and advocate devil worship.

There was a lot of bluster about Obama “overstepping his authority,” even though previous presidents have made similar speeches. Timid school officials offered opt-outs for students whose parents objected. Cowardly school officials skipped the speech all together.

Steve Robertson, chairman of the Republican Party of Kentucky, last week called Obama’s plan to speak to children “very concerning and kind of creepy” and an attempt “to circumvent parents” and “gain direct access to our children.”

Robertson and some talk radio entertainers focused on an ill-chosen phrase that federal education bureaucrats used in material prepared for teachers. The phrase, suggesting teachers could have students write letters to themselves about how they can “help the president,” was reworded to how they “can achieve their … education goals.”

It seemed like a lame excuse for objecting to a presidential speech, because that’s exactly what it was.

Some GOP leaders have no interest in working with Obama and other Democrats, whether it’s rebuilding the economy, reforming health care or anything else. They just want to see Obama fail.

The talking heads of the right-wing media relentlessly bash Obama. They shamelessly distort facts, incite fear and call anyone who disagrees with them radical, socialist or even communist. It’s a profitable business model, because gullible listeners lap it up.

Obama is no radical, unless you think “middle of the road” means the right shoulder. But there are radicals out there, on both sides of the political spectrum, and this episode is a good reminder that responsible people should be wary of them.

American politics has always been messy, but it works pretty well. In robust, fact-based discussions among responsible people, ideology usually gives way to artful compromise and practical solutions. One of history’s best examples was Lexington’s own Henry Clay.

On the other hand, history’s ills can usually be traced to political or religious ideology and extremism, from Mao’s China and Hitler’s Germany to the Spanish Inquisition and modern Islamic terrorism. Those perpetrators believed they were right and their opponents were evil, and they had no reservations about saying or doing whatever it took to win.

Obama’s agenda and proposals should be carefully studied and vigorously debated. Thoughtful discussion could lead to good compromises, better ideas and ultimately solutions for the nation’s problems, some of which can be traced to past examples of ideology trumping common sense.

That has become more difficult, though, because modern communications technology amplifies the voices of irresponsible extremists, ideologues and the willfully ignorant people who follow them.

The best lesson to take away from the president’s speech to school children is that personal responsibility is a good concept for adults, too.

Talk radio is right about one issue: Bringing back the Fairness Doctrine would be a bad idea.

Of course, it’s not really much of an issue. While a few congressional Democrats have suggested some sort of new Fairness Doctrine, there’s little support for it. President Obama is on record against it. It won’t happen.

But the mere suggestion has been enough to send right-wing pundits into a frenzy.

They always need a good frenzy.

Fear, paranoia and calls to “take back America” have been these guys’ stock in trade for years, even though their favored politicians have run the country most of that time.

Left-wing talk show hosts and bloggers are no better. All fanatics like to take a thread of fact and spin it into a web of nonsense. Their opinions are often based on ignorance, distortion and speculation. Nothing energizes them more than a good conspiracy theory.

There’s no more reliable formula for profit in the media business these days than partisan outrage — the more outrageous, the better. As writer H.L. Mencken observed nearly a century ago, nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

The Fairness Doctrine governed the owners of radio and television stations between 1949 and 1987. It required on-air discussions of controversial issues of public interest to be fair, equitable and honest.

The U.S. Supreme Court decided that the Fairness Doctrine didn’t violate the First Amendment guarantees of free speech and the press because the limited public airwaves belonged to the public, not to the owners of broadcast licenses.

But the trouble with the Fairness Doctrine was that values such as fairness, equity and honesty are subjective. In practice, many broadcasters simply avoided controversial topics for fear of getting in trouble with the regulators.

During the 38 years the Fairness Doctrine was in force, the justification for it grew steadily weaker as new technology emerged and the power of over-the-air radio and television diminished. Now we have cable TV, satellite radio and the Internet, the most egalitarian communications medium in history.

Talk radio didn’t result so much from repeal of the Fairness Doctrine as it did from deregulation that allowed a handful of companies to buy up most of America’s radio stations. Those companies maximized profits by cutting local programming and replacing it with syndicated talkers.

Right-wing provocateurs dominate the medium because their views sell. The result is that many Americans now confuse the right lane with the middle of the road.

While new technology has broadened the menu of news and opinion, it has made it easy for people to restrict their diet. Many Americans now want to read or hear only things they agree with. They dismiss other opinions or facts as “biased.”

It has long been fashionable for conservatives to complain about “liberal bias” in news reporting. But, as every newspaper editor knows, there are plenty of vocal liberals, too. Left-wingers accuse journalists of suppressing “the truth” to protect corporate profits, the wealthy power structure and the status quo.

No wonder so many people hate The Media: It reflects more than them.

How could a new Fairness Doctrine possibly work? Would it apply to cable and satellite broadcasters, too? What about the Internet? Who would decide what’s fair?

It’s never a good idea to limit public discussion. No freedoms are more vital than speech and the press. They are what keep government and other powerful institutions in check and the pendulum of popular passion from swinging too far one way or the other.

The last thing America needs is another Fairness Doctrine. Instead, each American needs to adopt his or her own Intelligence Doctrine. Citizens of all persuasions need to recognize their biases, challenge their assumptions and be more skeptical. They need to read widely and think for themselves.

Don’t whine about the media, whether it’s Rush Limbaugh or Keith Olbermann, Fox News or The New York Times. Newspapers, magazines, radio, television and the Internet have put a world of information at your fingertips.

Do your homework. Think critically. Prove H.L. Mencken wrong.