"As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly." --Proverbs 26:11I thought I'd open this post with an apt bit of religion since NPR opted to end its Thursday story about the the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association (RTCA) dinner on an sanctimonious note with Bush saying, "And so to Bob Woodruff, the Bloom girls, Elizabeth Edwards, Tony Snow, and of course our men and women in uniform, Laura and I and millions of other Americans are praying for you and your families. May God Bless you and thank you very much." I was biking home from work when I heard that, and thought I might hurl, especially as it was preceded by Don Gonyea's fawning over how funny Bush's self-deprecating jokes were and how Karl Rove's creepy rap performance even "trumped" Bush's performance.
I didn't post on it because I was so much more angered by Jamie Tarabay's complacent attitude toward beating and killing Iraqis. But then today on Saturday Weekend Edition it was - like the proverbial dog - back to the RCTA dinner AGAIN! This time Brian Naylor was crowing about his great seat at the dinner: "I had a really great seat this year, right between Nancy Pelosi…and Dana Perino, who is the deputy White House Press Secretary, and I don’t think she’d mind if I revealed that she’s a big NPR fan."
Well, Brian, she might not mind, but I'm disgusted. Her job, as underling and now stand-in for Tony Snow, is to be the official apologist and liar for the White House -- no wonder she's a big NPR fan.
As the report goes on we are subjected to Bush's jokes and Rove's rapping AGAIN, and then Naylor's commentary: "A lot of people think it’s wrong for the media to mingle with the politicians they cover, and wrong to laugh at one another while there’s a war going on, but as I put my tux away until next spring, I think of my nephew Kevin in Iraq, and my good friend John who…is battling cancer and I think that once in a while laughing and mingling isn’t such a bad thing." Well Mr. Naylor, it wouldn't be such a bad thing if the rest of the year you and NPR News weren't constantly treating US government, military, and business leaders as if they were truthful and credible instead of holding up their words and actions to rigorous skepticism and scrutiny.
5 comments:
Well the old puke had a slightly new taste this morning, with Leanne Hanson dissing speaker Pelosi for her trip to Syria. Although it took NPR's crack political reporter to actually mention that some repugs went to Syria, too, Hanson gave the new veneer to the old story: now it's Pelosi's positioning herself in the national spotlight , Pelosi's demonstrating that she's a stateswoman of national proportions, that's fueling her trip to Syria. So it's all about the self-aggrandizing Pelosi, about how her trip is so self-serving. And when discussing the 'end the war...NOT' funding bill, although the NPR reporter had mentioned the congressional report that funding will not be impacted until JULY, Hanson was repeating Boosh lines about making sure the troops would not be lacking due to the irresponsible congress. Hanson was a real evil tool this morning.
Reporters love to rub shoulders with Bush and Rove. It gives them access to power. It allows them to cozy up and be sycophants. There should be a journalistic rule of ethics that reporters should not participate in events like this if high administration officials are attending.
Roberto in Utah
These reporters are no better than the courtiers of a mad King, laughing at his every "self-deprecating" joke. They show their true colors when someone actually makes Bush the butt of a joke, like at last year's affair when Stephen Colbert said the Bush Administration was "soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenberg!" This crack, truly cutting, was followed by a stony silence from the bigfoot press in the room.
I just discovered this blog thru a mention in The Progressive Magazine. I am so glad someone is taking on NPR. I am so sick of people saying how "liberal" npr is.
An example of NPR's liberalism: When Pinochet died, the report conceded yes he did kill some people, on the other hand... here they interviewed someone who used to be a neighbor, who reveals what a nice guy Pinochet was and how well-liked he was.
gag.
Because of the abolition of the Fairness Act during the Reagan Administration, NPR is under no obligation to be anything other than what it wants to be at any given moment. Sure, there are 'guidelines' and legalistic gobbledegook, but as we've seen with jaw-dropping regularity, which seems to increase on an hourly basis, NPR indulges in its own auto-eroticism with decadent abandon. At least my own dog's occasional puke has an honesty to it.
Larry, thanks for the Liann Hanson reference. (Or however the hell you spell her name... I'm too lazy to look up all those people on their cheery list...) Long established in her safe Sunday morning shelter, she's done her own damage through the years, coming across as gentle and sympathetic. I never liked her voice, but she seemed the least offensive of the NPR lifers. Nevertheless, you bring up the aspect of her subtlety, which is more like the 'old' NPR insidiousness rather than the 'new' Inskeep dingbatness. I know I'm curmudgeonly about NPR, but why did I ever subject myself to any of that Liann Hanson-Will Schortz insipidness throughout the long years??
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