Did Obama Preempt Rush Op-Ed?

RUSH: This is Trace Gallagher at the Fox News Channel just a moment ago.

GALLAGHER: We just heard from the White House spokesman saying that Barack Obama, the president, in fact does not support bringing back the Fairness Doctrine. If you’re not up on this, the Fairness Doctrine is basically where a lot of Democrats have said, ‘You know, if Rush Limbaugh gets three hours of radio every day then a Democrat should also get three hours of radio on that station to make it fair and balanced, to have both sides of the story.’ The president says he does not support bringing back the Fairness Doctrine.

RUSH: I wouldn’t read anything into this. Of course they’re not going to bring back the Fairness Doctrine. They’re going to call it something else. They’re going to use a series of contrivances. They will use ownership restriction, ownership rules. They will use local content rules. The Wall Street Journal, two days ago, asked me for an op-ed on this. I submitted the op-ed this morning. It is an open letter to President Obama asking for clarity and definitive answer on — on censorship of the media. Now, I’m wondering. I am just wondering if somebody along the line did not leak my op-ed and the White House heard of it coming and they want to preempt its publication.’

At the next break, I’m going to fire off a note to the people at the Journal, because there is an expiration date on every Obama statement. He can say today he doesn’t believe in it but then something of an emergency will come up in another day or two, in a week, and force him to change his mind. Now, the FCC, he’s got a lot of people working on this. ACORN is gearing up to enforce the same type of restrictions on broadcasting that the Fairness Doctrine would require. They’re not going to call it that. They are going to go for it. As I’ve told you, I’m reluctant to talk about this, because I don’t want to sound like a victim. I don’t want to sound like, ‘They’re coming after me! They’re coming after me! (crying)’ but they’re going after any area there is dissent. They’re even going after the Internet. The Obama administration people are talking about the unfairness and the imbalance and the lack of a ‘filter’ on the Internet.

It’s not just talk radio. They’re not going after cable TV; they’re not going after NPR; they’re not going after broadcast TV; they’re not going after newspapers or magazines. They are focusing on talk radio. The very idea that he says he opposes the Fairness Doctrine? But he doesn’t oppose the results of the Fairness Doctrine. He is in full-fledged support of what would happen if the Fairness Doctrine were ever re-implemented. But I just have to ask myself — and I spent a lot of time on this op-ed and the publication date scheduled for tomorrow. And outta nowhere, out of nowhere, on Fox, some spokesman says Obama’s not even considering it? Why now? I mean that didn’t come up at the housing meeting today. It didn’t come up in Denver yesterday. It hasn’t come up on Air Force One. Where did it come up from? I didn’t tell anyone. I mean, I told, you know, a couple friends that I was going to write this thing. It’s fascinating stuff going on there. The intrigue, ladies and gentlemen.