Rare Praises for NPR

I was going to write about yesterday's deceitful and stupid report on the CIA by Pamela Hess of the AP (Media Bloodhound and Left I on the News often expose the AP for being the lazy rebroadcaster of US government propaganda that it is) or Juan Forero's (the reporter who couldn't read straight) pro bono work this morning for the owners of Venezuelan plantations (farms in Forero-speak) or Inskeep's coffee-clutch against the public health insurance option with the PR man for Wellpoint the parent company of a foundation that just happens to be one of NPR's biggest annual donors (hint: it's the California Endowment).

(From NPR's 2005 [most recent] Annual Report -PDF file)

But heck, it's summer and let's give credit where credit is due. First to Robert Siegel (there I said it!) who, on Monday's ATC, presented the Alito remarks about empathy as a counter to the attacks on Sotomayor's remarks about empathy. Siegel was interviewing the twittering Chuck Grassley of Iowa and confronted him with the Alito statements AND even asked a few follow-ups when Grassley tried to squirm out of making a complete ninny of himself. It was delicious.

More importantly, this morning Peter Kenyon actually covered the story of the 25 IDF soldiers who have documented the systematic war crimes of Operation Cast Lead. NPR actually sent a reporter on the ground in Gaza and talked to a Gazan who lost his parents to Israeli shooters in a case similiar to one related by an Israeli soldier. Several commenters on the web site of the story thanked NPR for reporting this - one who summed it up well as a commendable "baby step."

With Friends Like These - More Fair and Balanced from NPR

A reader of this blog earlier noted his letter to the OMBOTsman regarding NPR's habit of always having supposedly liberal Daniel Schorr balanced out on every show by a more rightwing voice (can you say Foxista Juan Williams?).

This morning featured Juan Williams (and Scott Simon) parroting the right wing talking points on the Sotomayor nomination:

(Williams) "But on the face of it Scott, you'd have to say that her language - and if you took it for what it was worth - was racist."

That was the view from the right, but what about the liberal views on the weeks news? Consider these statements from Schorr talking with Simon later in the program:

• "We have not witnessed a nuclear explosion in anger since 1945..."
• "Nuclear weapons going steadily into more and more hands and not very responsible hands..."
• "Probably the most immediate dangerous is what's called proliferation. Israel has already had to bomb an installation in Syria which apparently had North Korean help in getting a nuclear weapon."
• "And so for the civilized world right now the immediate thing is to prevent further proliferation which may mean having to board and search ships at sea."

Holy smokes! However - civilized, responsible Schorr wasn't done yet. With a prompt from Simon, he's off an running on Iran:

(Simon): "Does the policy of extending a hand in friendship look a little naive this week?"
(Schorr): "I don't know if it looks, if it is naive, but it looks as though it's not getting very far..."

I'm not sure what hand of friendship Simon and Schorr are fantasizing about. Maybe they mean one of the AIPAC enriched palms of Dennis Ross - chief of Obama's non-diplomacy policy toward Iran.

Sleazy Thomas

I figured I might as well post this while it's prominent in the news. Hopefully it will be a dead story by next weekend.

The Clarence Thomas story continues. I've heard at least two full reports Saturday morning and afternoon) on Thomas' book from Nina Totenberg and then this shorter segment on Monday (10/1)' Morning Edition. Notably missing from any has been the mention of David Brock. Remember him? He was the author of a character assassination book against Anita Hill and then he later admitted that the book was created from lies and distortions. Also missing was the fact that Hill first made her accusations to the FBI and that the accusations were pretty detailed and disturbing. I've heard Thomas' description of Hill as a "mediocre" employee, but I've noticed also that there has been no discussion of Thomas' pathetic and mediocre record both at EEOC and on the court.

Totenberg, who is pretty thorough, does note that the self-promoting Thomas freak show is being organized by the following extreme right groups The Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, but we get no information about these groups and she doesn't mention the third organization behind the Thomas tour, the National Center for Policy Analysis.