NPR Plays The Cult of Both Sides

Last Friday, the president spoke in my hometown and NPR in Minnesota aired a post speech analysis. At about the 12 minute mark, Keith Downy, chair of the Minnesota Republican party joins the conversation and, thus, any criticism of NPR being liberal goes directly out of the fucking window. For the next few minutes, Downy spins the usual yarn about how the free market can just sort itself out. If we had only left the government out of it in 2008, all would be well with our economy today.

What fucking planet are these people living on?

Worse, he's being terribly dishonest because he would have done the exact same thing the president did. I'd like Mr. Downy or any other free market fundamentalist to point to real world evidence of their theory. Show me a recession that was that bad and then show me how doing nothing worked out.

Of course the real treat of the segment was Andy from Sioux Falls, a small business owner fed up with federal taxes, who comes in at around 14 minutes into the segment. After hearing his remarks, I have to question whether or not this man was an actual small business owner or whether he was a Tea Party troll calling in to wax Ayn Rand. No business owner (large, medium, or small) turns down making more money because they are worried about paying federal taxes. What a ludicrous bunch of nonsense! After Downy's ad hom on the woman the president met with to discuss local economic concerns, I was left to wonder how NPR let themselves get into such a position.

When will the "liberal" media stop playing the cult of both sides? Sometimes there is only one side to a story. Supply side economics doesn't work. Even the guys that came up with it (David Stockman, Bruce Bartlett) have admitted they were wrong. You can't simply ignore aggregate demand and pretend it doesn't exist. The problem with our economy today is that there are not enough people buying things so businesses don't hire people. There isn't enough population at the top to support our economy.

The middle class is the engine that drives our economy and when they have more money, our economy will improve.

Did FOX News Engineer the Whole Juan Williams Flap?

During this election cycle, haven't Republicans been saying that the deficit is the most important thing? And when asked exactly what programs they'll cut, what's just about the only thing they'll say they'll cut? Isn't it NPR and NEA?

So isn't it curious that last week Bill O'Reilly asked Juan Williams a leading question about Muslims? One that Williams answered two parts: the first part making himself sound bigoted, and then going on to make himself sound reasonable? And then isn't it odd that some shadowy "liberal group" circulated a carefully edited video of his comments?

Doesn't this have all the shades of the Shirley Sherrod charade? And we all know who arranged that video, don't we?

And isn't it interesting that two days after Williams was fired from NPR he received what some people consider a two million dollar payoff from FOX News?

Have people who listen to NPR during Williams' tenure on the network noticed a change in his perspective? Hasn't he been parroting right-wing talking points on his appearances on NPR ever since he began working for FOX? Why didn't Williams heed the several warnings NPR management gave him to avoid making such comments? Did FOX hire Williams to get a spy into the NPR news room? Is FOX News fanning the flames of terrorism and inciting the bomb threat against NPR?

And hasn't NPR bent over backwards in all areas to avoid seeming partisan? Haven't they banned their employees from attending the Jon Stewart/Steven Colbert rally unless they're covering it? And aren't NPR and PBS just shills for corporate interests anyway? Don't they get like 60% of their money from corporate sponsorships and grants, 40% from local stations, and only 1.5% from the CPB? So, wouldn't cutting funding for CPB have no effect on NPR, and only hurt rural public radio stations that depend on CPB funding?

Is it even proper for NPR to employ someone like Williams, who works for a rabidly partisan political organization like FOX, which makes no secret of the millions of dollars it pumps into Republican political campaigns? An organization run by Roger Ailes, a notorious Republican political hack? An organization that pumped up the Tea Party and falsified video in order to make Tea Party rallies seem larger than they really were?

You couldn't blame anyone who thought that FOX cooked up the whole Juan Williams affair in order to discredit the last news organization that actually produces hard, no-nonsense news, could you?

Hey, can you blame me if people think these things? Can't I just ask a few questions?