Sunday, September 10, 2006

 

"What's the Matter with Kansas?": What's the Matter with Daniel Schorr?

Being not the best Jew, I do not live within walking distance of a shul and hence drive to shul. NPR is usually on my car radio. Yesterday, I heard Daniel Schorr giving his "analysis" about certain things about which Linda Wertheimer was asking. Mr. Schorr managed to really not say much of anything when Bush was to be criticized, but managed to be very verbosely snippy towards Bill Clinton. He also referred to Bush's proposals as something Bush "needs" presumably for fighting terrorism. He also said the Clinton and friends disputed "the facts" of the 9/11 fiasco "docu-drama" (although he did admit that somethings were fictionalized) when what is disputed are really outright lies.

When did Schorr become such a de facto wingnut? And why does NPR bill him as an analyst when he doesn't analyze anything but rather grouches and slouches in a right wing direction with little rhyme or reason other than reactionary bias?

Comments:
I generally don't listen to NPR news programming anymore, I do listen to Diane Rehm which they carry and Saysyou but unless the Met isn't in production and NPR World of Opera has something interesting on, don't laugh, it does happen once in a blue moon, I don't listen to anything. I'm even kind of tired of the car guys these days.

Daniel Schorr should have retired a few mentions of the "Enemies List" ago.
 
Pathetically, NPR seems to be the best of the lot around here in Tally (if Air America has a Big Bend, FL, affiliate, I've not found it yet), news-wise. Plus, I'm hooked on some of their other programming, e.g., in spite of my possibly well-deserved reputation as an anti-sports-fan nerd, I'm hooked on "It's Only a Game" (thanks Charlie Pierce).

Still NPR is certainly both "National Petroleum Radio" and the network of "we aren't liberal, we're objective ... we work so hard not to be liberal, even if it means we're further to the right than Attila the Hun". And people still complain. They evidently had some program about what it's like to be a Muslim in post-9/11 America, and they got letters about how "inappropriate" that program was. Most were just basically bigoted, but one, who responded to a Muslim concerned about cultural corrosion living in this country with a "so go back to where you came from" line, struck me as particularly egregious and pernicious: would this guy say to those fundie Christians who say more or less the same thing as the Muslim interviewed, go back to Savrinola's Florence?

Talk about straws and logs ...
 
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