What do President Barack Obama and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez have in common? Besides their socialist economic policies, they don't abide media critics well. The Obama White House has Rush Limbaugh, king of talk radio, in its crosshairs. When a president of the United States targets one media personality for criticism, those who live and breathe by the First Amendment should be aware they're on life-support. The executive branch can pull their plug via the FCC, which decides who gets or keeps a broadcast license.

On Feb. 23, a federal court will consider the latest attempt to secularize America, led by militant atheist lawyer Michael Newdow. His lawsuit, Newdow v. Roberts, seeks to purge all references to God from presidential inaugurations.

We usually think of freedom of speech as involving the right of speakers to speak, whether through public addresses, in writing, or over radio and television airwaves. But the courts have recognized an additional dimension to First Amendment free speech rights: the right to listen and watch. This right takes center stage in a current challenge to the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law and could play a role in the debate about the Fairness Doctrine.

This op-ed originally appeared in the Washington Times on December 29, 2008.

It is fitting that during this season we take time to acknowledge our nation’s religious heritage. In the Mayflower Compact – the agreement made by the earliest American settlers – the preamble explains that their mission included the “propagating of Christian religion to such people as yet live in darkness and miserable ignorance of the true knowledge and worship of God.”

Even Christopher Columbus is recorded as acknowledging that his ambitious plan to discover new worlds was in part a religious endeavor. “It is hoped that by God’s assistance, some of the […]

It should be a well settled idea that in a democracy, freedom of speech and debate are crucial bulwarks of liberty. Unfortunately, that is not a notion widely held today by the self-appointed political censors of the 21st century; especially those who deplore the rightward tilt of talk radio. These critics of talk radio disregard the overwhelming left-wing viewpoint dominance in newspapers and television and zealously seek to impose speech limits until that same dominance is brought to bear on talk radio. It is laughable that talk radio's political speech should require government control and it is tragic that if the critics succeed they will threaten one of the most precious freedoms that our nation was founded upon and that the Constitution protects -- freedom of expression.

Led by Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, a phalanx of Democrats and liberal pressure groups are urging a return to "The Fairness Doctrine." What could be more American than "fairness"?