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Judge Andrew Napolitano
Dear blogger,
How many times have you written something, covered some newsworthy event or been part of a breaking story of national significance only to see your issue ignored by the national television media? If you are like me, you find it extremely frustrating.
As one personal example, one piece I recently wrote on a libertarian site quickly exploded into national headlines. The blog posting to which I refer is one of the two key ones which exposed the Department of Homeland Security report when they labeled most believers in small government as potential right-wing extremists. While hundreds of blogs immediately linked to the posting, the national television media pretty much ignored the sources of the story.
Likewise, libertarians have been engaged in Tea Party activities for years and we played a very significant role on the ones held on April 15th. Looking at the national media, one might think that Sean Hannity or Newt Gingrich were the driving force behind them. Because Hannity played such a passive role on deficit spending during the Bush years and folks like Gingrich actively “supported and lobbied for a $9 trillion expansion of Medicare and more recently, the Trouble Asset Relief Program,” this is a direct slap in the face to the thousands and thousands of libertarians around the country who have been fighting these issues for years.
Fortunately, libertarians did pick up a limited amount of national television presence regarding the Tea Parties: Here is Jason Pye on Neil Cavuto, Keith Olbermann talking about Eric Odom, Penn Jillette with Glenn Beck, Rachel Maddow about Ron Paul and me on Rachel Maddow. While some of the media was positive, most of these programs aren’t necessarily respectful to the libertarian position on taxes and spending. Also, compare the amount of time you saw usurpers and astroturfers on your television screen to the amount of time you watched folks with genuine Tea Party credibility.
Let’s fast forward a mere few days from the Tea Parties to illustrate what can be if libertarians had more of a national television presence. As you are probably aware, Judge Andrew Napolitano has been hosting an online Fox News program called Freedom Watch.
When the libertarian activists involved with the Motorhome Diaries were arrested in Mississippi, thousands of Internet activists immediately jumped on board to help them and publicize the story. Judge Napolitano was also there, and here’s his interview of Jason Talley and Pete Eyre.
Right now, the level of national television coverage that libertarians receive doesn’t even remotely resemble our numbers. Even when libertarians are the ones making the news, we often aren’t the ones being interviewed by the mainstream media. It’s also important for current events to be analyzed from a libertarian perspective.
Right now, we’ve got a chance to upgrade Freedom Watch to national television. It’s one of several programs being considered for an open time slot on the Fox News Channel.
According to an e-mail I received from Judge Napolitano’s colleague Shelly Roche, the Fox producers are telling her the two most important things we can do are “flooding Fox with emails and showing high view counts on the videos.”
Perhaps you’d like to help the cause. Perhaps you’d like to see your blog or favorite issue covered on national television. Whether you are acting in libertarian self-interest or for more altruistic reasons, let’s get the word out so we can get the program on the air.
If we are all posting the appropriate Fox e-mail address and embedding their videos, it will help place Freedom Watch on the air. Also, it will help spread the word so others will start doing the same. Additionally, you can place widgets on your website.
If you're not a blogger, please feel free to e-mail Fox or help spread the word on Twitter anyway. And if your not a libertarian, you'll still probably enjoy additional political perspectives being debated on national television, so your help is equally important.
They say that freedom isn’t free, but...
...for the cost of a blog entry or e-mail, we may be able to freely watch Freedom Watch on TV.
UPDATE: I'd like to thank all the folks from Litte Green Footballs for stopping by. To be very clear about things, this writer has a very long track record going after conspiracy theorists, making fun of paranoid activists, exposing racists, making fun of nutjobs, attacking Truthers, baiting Birthers and poking fun at people ranging from Alex Jones to Alan Keyes. While I supported Ron Paul until around Super Tuesday, I've been critical of Paul at times, his supporters at times, and made sure that Bob Barr handled race-related situations much differently than Ron Paul did.
Even if he wanted to, I find it difficult to believe that the powers-to-be at Fox would allow Judge Napolitano to turn a televised program into conspiracy theory central.
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