O ld political myths never die, least of all when they serve the purpose of leftist enthusiasms, and so it is that a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission retrieved one the other day and happily trotted it out in a manner suggesting that free speech must sometimes be quashed.

The occasion was a panel discussion during a stimulating several-day session of the Aspen Institute’s Forum on Communications and Society, and the subject was this year’s presidential election.

By way of illustrating what should be avoided as campaigns continue, Reed Hundt referred to several past elections — of how, in his view, far too much had been made of Al Gore’s sighing during a debate with George W. Bush, and of the way in which “propaganda” intruded during the final weeks of the 2004 election when Sinclair Broadcasting aired a documentary critical of John Kerry.

The sighs were rude and fake, a sign to me of childish character traits, but let’s give Hundt this one. Maybe, as he said, the Bush remarks were “sighable.” Then we come to the Sinclair episode, and here the story is different, because what we had was a blatant intimidation campaign meant to curtail debate in our democracy.

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A number of Democrats in Congress signed a petition saying the FCC should yank Sinclair’s license if it went ahead with its plans, Sinclair stock plummeted, and the company backed off from its original plans, airing the documentary other than during prime time and using an edited version. I saw it. The film consisted of interviews with former prisoners of war who felt the anti-war protests of Kerry and others had lengthened their period of captivity. After the session, I asked Hundt, who served on the FCC during the Clinton administration and is now with a management consulting firm, whether he would have agreed as FCC chairman to deprive Sinclair of its license if it went ahead with what it had at first intended.

He said he would have conducted a hearing and that, if it had been shown that there was a connection between the production and the Bush campaign, might have agreed to act against the firm.

He did not respond directly when I asked whether he would also have considered yanking the CBS license if “60 Minutes” had done something comparable to what the news division of Sinclair had done, although he did make a distinction between the news show and the corporation. His view is that the government owns the airwaves, and TV broadcasters do not have “unmitigated” protection under the First Amendment.

A few thoughts.

In an age of cable TV and the Internet, the insistence that broadcast TV’s airwaves should be regulated no longer has any theoretical validity, no matter what past court rulings have said.

The version of the documentary I saw was as legitimate as any number of news shows I watched during the campaign, a case of aggrieved citizens having their say.

I have never seen proof that the Bush campaign had anything to do with the show, although I do know that a great deal of tough reporting on politicians during elections has its genesis in accusations or complaints from the other side.

The left has recently taken to calling conservative arguments “propaganda,” thereby making it sound as if they should not be covered by constitutional free speech provisions, and there is a movement among Democrats to reinstitute equal-time provisions for radio talk shows. A consequence would likely be to take any number of conservative talk show hosts off radio.

Sigh.

Examiner Columnist Jay Ambrose is a former Washington opinion writer and editor of two dailies. He can be reached at speaktojay@aol.com.