This week, Senator John Kerry joined the growing chorus of legislators calling for the revival of the Fairness Doctrine. A legacy of the golden age of radio, the doctrine’s original logic was simple: the public airwave spectrum is limited, so important or controversial issues have to be presented in a balanced manner.

Perhaps a valid point. If it were still 1940.

But these aren’t the days of the Green Hornet and FDR’s fireside chats. Between satellite radio, the Internet, cable TV, and public access stations, consumers have a bewlidering number of options for getting their information, and a variety of media through which to receive it.

Simply put, terrestrial radio, the raison d’être of the rule, long ago lost its stranglehold on how Americans learn about critical issues of the day. To revive the Fairness Doctrine would be anachronistic and unnecessary. While we’re at it, we might as well bring back violet-flavored chewing gum, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, and girls named “Mildred.”

Kerry clearly has Rush Limbaugh and company in his crosshairs. After years of failed attempts to topple conservative talk through free and open competition, petulant liberals turn to the nuclear option by resurrecting a statute twenty years past its shelf life. Undeterred by the realities of market forces, Kerry added that conservatives had, by repealing the Fairness Doctrine, “squeezed down and squeezed out” differing opinions.

Hogwash. Jim Hightower and Mario Cuomo were not “squeezed out” by conservatives. They were cancelled due to poor ratings. Air America Radio, while still clinging to life, has the financial stability of Braniff Airways and can’t seem to pull robust ratings outside of Portland and Seattle. (Last year, the Madison, Wisconsin affiliate flirted with the idea of going to all-sports programming - a close call for Air America, as that would have been like opening a chain of surf shops and losing the Maui franchise.)

If liberal chatter can’t forge beyond the beachhead of its cherry-picked markets, it’s not because Limbaugh and Hannity are hogging the airwaves. Indeed, if Infinity Broadcasting could find a liberal version of Rush, capable of achieving his ratings on a national scale, they would sign him tomorrow. The lack of such a viable alternative indicates a dearth of either talent or demand, with the smart money on the latter.

Liberals have long tried to explain away their lack of success by saying that they are above such banal chatter. Keith Olbermann, the new avatar of liberal talking heads, said that Democrats “have (other) things to do.” If this is the case, then begrudging conservatives unfettered access to the airwaves smacks of a child taking his football and going home, just to ruin the game for the other kids.

Which raises another question: how could one presume to neatly categorize talk as either conservative or liberal? In my home market of Philadelphia, there is an entertaining and thought-provoking morning host named Michael Smerconish. While right of center on many issues, he his hardly a firebrand and would likely take exception to the rants of a Michael Savage. Would Smerconish’s show be cancelled? Shortened? Would every talking point require a counterpoint? Perhaps the station would have to find a co-host who is a light shade of blue to balance things out?

More importantly, who gets to define where the imbalance is problematic? Again, singling out talk radio willfully ignores the changes in the media landscape over the last two decades. If partisan commentary truly poisons the public discourse, then apply the same scrutiny to NPR or any mainstream news outlet where the editorial bias has leaked to the front page. (If reinstating the Fairness Doctrine meant that Paul Krugman of The New York Times had to take every other week off, I might be in favor.)

These are all important questions, as the practical implications of fixing such an imbalance are legion. Whether the left likes it or not the genie is out of the bottle now, and any forced realignment of the airwaves will be an ugly, heavy-handed affair. If Democrats insist on going down that path, they should ask Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez for some pointers.

Of course, the initiative is not about restoring balance or fairness. It is about silencing people whose talent and broad popularity has made them wildly successful, much to the chagrin of John Kerry and his colleagues. It’s a case of “we can’t beat them, and we don’t want to join them…

…so let’s shut them the hell up.”