Fairness Doctrine for PBS?

Bill Moyers Journal piece on PBS, "Katrina Revisited" (August 17th, 2007) featured Mike Tidwell (author and environmental activist) and Melissa Harris-Lacewell (Associate Professor of Politics and African American Studies at Princeton)to discuss New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina to present.

The PBS web-site describes the segment saying, "Bill Moyers gets two views on what the disaster and its aftermath says about American culture and values." Nevermind that both views are from left-leaning liberal partisans. There is diversity here. Don't you see? It doesn't matter that they think the same thing, share the same assumptions and lack of curiosity about other points of view, there are three different Democrat points-of-view including Moyers, what more diversity could you ask for?

Is this fair use of taxpayer dollars and citizen-owned airwaves? There was no Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams or Newt Gingrich to provide a classic liberal, market-based perspective on dealing with the aftermath of Katrina. Why? Afraid some Americans might find their ideas compelling? Or they might pose a question you can't answer? I suspect both.

If the issue of the Fairness Doctrine comes up anytime soon, I propose we apply it. But not just to radio. To PBS, to the New York Times, to CNN. It is time for fairness. To quote John Kerry, "BRING IT ON!"

Several things were striking in this PBS show. First, the assumption by host and guests that all responsibility is at the federal level. Second, Tidwell assumed a zero-sum game where funds are allocated to Katrina relief or fighting Islamic radicals. He stated that the feds could have done better, but Bush instead spent $30 billion in the same year on Iraq. Paraphrasing, he said, "if Iraq's number one export were broccoli, we wouldn't be there."

Moyers doesn't even blink. It doesn't dawn on him to ask:

a) Aren't the Democratic Mayor and state Governor at least as responsible for their constituencies as the Republican President?

b) Where's the oil you say we went to Iraq for. What of the pre-invasion bipartisan consensus reflected in the unanimous Senate passage and signing by President Clinton of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 that stated, "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime"? Had President Clinton followed-through in 1998, might we have been finished with Iraq and ready to deal with Katrina?

c) Can't a nation of our size and wealth deal with both National Security issues and natural disasters? Isn't Islamic Jihad a threat more serious to the entire nation than one hurricane? Are you aware the $30 billion went to efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan?

The Princeton Associate Professor weighed in saying that poor folks in New Orleans have a "right" to live in a city built below sea-level in a river delta known to flood with reqularity. After all, rich people build houses in all kinds of pretty but dangerous places like barrier islands and sea-cliff coastlines in earthquake land.

What didn't Moyers ask? He didn't ask if anyone, rich or poor, has a "right" to live in the known path of natural disaster and be bailed out by U.S. taxpayers. He doesn't point out that most "rich" people worked their tails off for what they've earned and tend to have healthy insurance policies for their precarious perches.

Harris-Lacewell continued saying Progressive Democrats should have stepped into the breach and proven that they're equipped to deal with the battered poor but didn't.

The thing that was so painful was that she said it as if this was an aberration. Hey Progressives, in case you're idea poor, I'll give one to you for FREE! Big, federal government isn't the answer. Particularly "Progressive" big government. Look at history. Think. Learn. Washington bureaucrats of any party will never care as much, understand as well, or be as vested in local communities as, well, local communities. So guess where you should put most of your tax resources and responsibility? Yes, that it. State and local government. Just like the founders designed it.

Forget progression. Liberals need to become more familiar with the founding ideas, basic economics, and history. And how about getting progressive about a diversity of ideas and viewpoints? Isn't that the fairness we should expect from public television?