All the news the government deems fit

The audacity of the Obama Administration know no bounds. It is now giving serious thought to propping up the dying main stream media.

Of course it is propping up the dying U.S. auto industry, a sop to the unions, but the auto industry doesn't have its own constitutional amendment. Can anyone name one thing the government has funded and not told what to do?

Dispatches from the frontlines of this latest squirmish in Obama's war to "fundamentally change" this country:

• The FTC's "Reinventing Journalism" project is only at the staff discussion level for now, but there is clearly an effort supported by President Obama to mount some kind of bailout for the newspaper industry similar to those previously conducted by the administration in taking over GM and Chrysler, as well as multiple Wall Street firms, most of the mortgage industry and key elements of the insurance industry.

• Centerpiece of the agency's recently released "discussion draft" is a proposal for a new 3 percent federal tax on monthly cell phone bills to create a $3.5 billion fund to be doled out by Washington bureaucrats to favored old media outlets like the New York Times.

• More devastating news today from Rasmussen Reports for the FTC's "Reinventing Journalism" project, as fully 85 percent of the respondents to a national telephone survey say protecting freedom of the press is more important than saving existing newspapers. Perhaps even more worrisome for the FTC is the fact that only 19 percent of the respondents think it's appropriate for the government to be involved in efforts to prop up existing newspapers, according to Rasmussen.

• Federal Trade Commission (FTC) leaders are attempting to distance themselves from controversial proposals published in a May 24 working paper on "reinventing" the media. The report presents a suite of options through which government could step in and supposedly rescue journalism, most notably by imposing taxes. A fee could be levied on websites such as the Drudge Report that link to the best news of the day, or a tax could be imposed on consumer electronics such as iPads, laptops and Kindles. Funds collected would be redistributed to traditional media outlets.

Just some staff foolishness? Here's how Washington works:

Trial balloons are a fact of life inside the Beltway. When the administration and Congress want to enact a politically controversial policy, they often punt the issue to an independent federal agency whose leadership need not face the wrath of voters. Inside the agency, potentially unpopular ideas are presented first by staff so commissioners can jettison plans that prove untenable.

Passing the buck is a classic bureaucratic dodge. The FTC claims that the well-developed proposals released last month were simply an enumeration of options suggested in "public comments." In fact, the agency's Federal Register announcement for the proceeding questioned the propriety of news-aggregator websites that "do not pay for content" - this document was filed long before public hearings were held.

Now if you doubt that Obama has the media in his pocket, I'm not going to change your mind. But here are a couple of pre-election items.

August 20, 2008: A comprehensive analysis of every evening news report by the NBC, ABC and CBS television networks on Barack Obama since he came to national prominence concludes coverage of the Illinois senator has "bordered on giddy celebration of a political 'rock star' rather than objective newsgathering."

April 18, 2008: John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei, founders of Politico, in an article entitled, "Obama's secret weapon: The media":

Harris: As one who has assigned journalists to cover Obama at both Politico and The Washington Post, I have witnessed the phenomenon several times. Some reporters come back and need to go through detox, to cure their swooning over Obama’s political skill. Even VandeHei seemed to have been bitten by the bug after the Iowa caucu.

VandeHei: There is no doubt reporters are smitten with Obama's speeches and promises to change politics. I find his speeches, when he's on, pretty electric myself. It certainly helps his cause that reporters also seem very tired of the Clintons and their paint-by-polls approach to governing.

Maybe Obama will let us turn in our used copies of The New York Times under a new cash for clunkers program. I'm fairly certain that will happen, so why don't we all start dropping off our copies at the White House gate?