Liberals Want You Fat Free – Except for Your Head

Recall the nutrition nannies who told us 20 years ago to stop eating butter fat and start eating margarine with trans fats? They should have admitted they fumbled the facts and dropped out of sight, but no, now they're trying to ban trans fats. Along the way, the nutrition nannies have picked up some political sidekicks, the fairness nannies, who are trying to fill your head with their preferred brand of fat. Let's look at what these two sets of nannies are doing.

The “Fairness” Nannies.

Libs will tell you to “just turn the dial” if you don't like the violence and smut streaming from a particular radio or TV program—but now these same libs want government to make you listen to airheads like those on Air America, which has gone into bankruptcy because the public turned the dial.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Dingbat-Ohio) has taken the lead on behalf of congressional leftists by promising to bring back the so-called “Fairness Doctrine.” Their goal is to require radio broadcasters to force-feed the public a smorgasbord of fat-headed liberal opinions on public issues.

“A soon-to-be-released study, commissioned by groups allied with the Democrats, finds that conservative dominance of the radio airwaves is growing,” according to Howard Fineman writing for MSNBC. “If the Dems are successful, the likes of Limbaugh are in for a load of trouble.” http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18679966/ [1]

The Fairness Doctrine is a lot like the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The NEA takes your tax dollars and gives them to “artists” who can't get the public to pay to see a crucifix dipped in urine. If revived, the Fairness Doctrine would permit the FCC to revoke a station's license if it fails to give a hearing to dipsticks dissed by the public.

The FCC's fairness policy was based on the idea that because of the limited number of broadcast licenses available, licensees had a duty to the public interest to include public issues in their programming and give each side of those issues fair coverage. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the doctrine in 1969 in Red Lion Broadcasting Company v. FCC.

At the urging of President Ronald Reagan, the FCC stopped enforcing the doctrine in the mid '80s. It discarded it entirely in 1987, as a result of a 2-1 ruling by the U.S Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which included judges Robert Bork and Antonin Scalia. The court declared that the doctrine was FCC policy, not federal law imposed by statute.

Fairness should mean that if a program can't attract an audience big enough and sponsors to pay the bills, that's the way the air waves. Instead, leftists want to force stations carrying conservative talk shows to give air time to opposing pinheads who can't keep an audience on their own. It's fairly ridiculous to call it fair, but that's the nanny state at work.

The Nutrition Nannies.

On Monday, the Montgomery County, Maryland, Council, a bastion of obsessive-compulsive fatphobes, unanimously approved a resolution making the county the first in the country to ban artificial trans fats from food served in eating and drinking establishments. The tran ban is similar to laws passed in New York City and Philadelphia.

The Montgomery cholesterol cops even intend to police church suppers by requiring pastors to get a waiver from the health department if they serve food with trans fats. Next thing you know, they'll be banning the 23^rd Psalm lest pastors anoint somebody with trans fatty oil.

The Montgomery mandate takes effect in January for restaurants and in January 2009 for establishments offering baked goods that aren't prepackaged. That means the local baker won't be able to sell his version of Oreos but markets will still be allowed to sell Nabisco's version. Fairness isn't double-stuffed in liberal land.

Council member Duchy Trachtenberg, who introduced the resolution, told The Washington Times: “Trans fats are clearly linked to heart disease and diabetes. It is common sense for the well-being and health of our residents.”

Liberals assume they have common sense but you don't have any, or you would have voted for them.

If you don't take the fat fighters seriously, check out the lawsuit they filed against Burger King to force the fast food giant to stop using trans fatty cooking oil.

The fairness nannies and the nutrition nannies make me want to chow down a deep-dish, double-stuffed, double cheese, meat-lovers supreme, extra large pizza, and chase it with a quart of chocolate caramel turtle cheese cake ice cream. On air.

Maybe I could get funding through the NEA by calling it performance gluttony. Maybe I could add some rap burp backup and force a Hip Hop station to broadcast it.

Maybe political popinjays should get a real job delivering pizza or slow churning ice cream.

Mrs. LaRue is a member of CMI's Board of Advisors.