This one’s rich. On the front page of yesterday’s Lancaster New Era is a McClatchy-Tribune story about a looming battle over “fairness” in talk radio, the possible revival of the “Fairness Doctrine.”

“Fairness” in talk radio would, of course, muzzle conservatives like Limbaugh and Hannity, Savage and all of the other tinpot local yokels on the dial from one side of the country to another. It might require “alternate” views to get equal airtime, which would water down the vehemence. Which, of course, is what some people want.

And so liberals are probably in favor of this; me, not so much. Because really, let conservatives have their radio enclave; conservative talk has proven to be profitable for the stations and networks involved, so let’s not have the government tell them how to run their businesses. If liberal talk radio were profitable it would be on the air; it isn’t, so it isn’t. And I’m really not concerned about how “slanted” talk radio is; one day the Internet is going to be comparably “slanted” to the left, that’s already in process. I’m sure conservatives will whine about that when the day comes. (It will be the same type of thing I get here at the newspaper - “The Sunday News should hire a conservative columnist and be more ‘fair and balanced.’ “)

In any event, the funny thing about this effort is the timing - now, after the immigration bills were specifically sent to their deaths by the insistence and persistence of conservative talk radio. And while Democrats have jumped on this bandwagon, let’s be realistic: If we get any legislative attempt to regulate conservative talk radio, it will be because Republicans want it; because Republicans wanted the immigration reform that talk radio helped kill.

The Republican Party now realizes that the conservative movement they have nurtured and used poses a threat to aspects of their legislative agenda. They’ll be smart about this - despite the fact that it was Mississippi Republican Trent Lott complaining that “talk radio is running America,” my guess is the GOP will permit Democrats to carry the “fairness” ball down the field and get out in front of the issue with all their liberal sanctimony. But all the while the Republican establishment will provide plenty of behind-the-scenes backing to “balance out” those loudmouth Limbaughs and render them impotent next time they want to get an immigration bill, or some similar economic measure that will benefit the economic elite but not the average talk-radio listener, through Congress.

Pretty amusing. Conservatives are always whining about how they’re being stabbed in the back. Turns out in this case it’s other conservatives who are doing the stabbing.