Ideological Apartheid at PBS

If you want to see an extreme example of the left-wing entitlement mentality, just look at how libs are going ballistic at the modest attempt by the Bush Administration to restore some token semblance of editorial balance at the Public Broadcasting System.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting will begin an internal review of political monitoring of PBS programming in response to Democratic complaints, the CPB's inspector general said Thursday.

[Democrat] Representatives David Obey and John Dingell have asked for the review into several actions by CPB board chairman Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, a Republican, including the hiring of a consultant to review the guests on the show Now With Bill Moyers.

The New York Times [natch] reported last week that the consultant kept track of "anti-Bush," "anti-business" and "anti-Tom DeLay" guests on the show. Moyers has left the show and now hosts Wide Angle on PBS.

The reasonable reaction at this point is, "So?" PBS has been a left-wing sandbox ever since it was enacted in the LBJ Great Society orgy forty years ago. It's taxpayer-subsidized Democrat propaganda. It is to American liberalism what al-Jazeera is to Muslim fundamentalism. It's long past time for somebody to restore a measure of ideological balance to its content, as its founding charter mandates.

Mr. Tomlinson, in other words, is just doing his job. And this, to Democrats, constitutes a "scandal" in need of "investigation."

In their letter to [CPB Inspector General Kenneth A.] Konz on Wednesday, Obey...and Dingell... said Tomlinson's actions may have violated the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which bans interference by federal officials over public programming...."Congress intended that the CPB serve as a shield rather than a source of political interference into public broadcasting," they wrote.

A "shield" protecting the metaphorical lib cockroaches within from the light of accountability for their entrenched prejudices on the nickel of an American public a majority of which flatly opposes the point of view for whose espousal people like Obey and Dingell demand continued monopoly status.

American Spectator Executive Editor George Neumayr raised some very obvious points about this kerfuffle yesterday:

Starting with the premise that liberalism is synonymous with editorial neutrality and independence, the media cast Tomlinson as "political" while his liberal critics at PBS are treated as "independent." This drawing of artificial lines is necessary in order to make the story sound compelling. But the story isn't alarming in the least if people know that the independent critics here are Democrats and liberals who treat PBS tax dollars as their own personal piggy bank for ideological projects.

That's pretty standard bias, actually. Kind of like how, in the linked AP story, Mr. Tomlinson is prominently identified as a Republican in the first paragragh, while you have to dig nearly to the bottom to find Dingell and Obey identified as Democrats.

Neumayr draws a ready-made parallel with the objection to "monitoring" Bill Moyer's anti-Bush shilling:

Under a picture of Bill Moyers, the Washington Post ran the caption: "Bill Moyers's PBS program is reported to have been monitored for 'anti-Bush' content." That's supposed to sound very chilling. But what Tomlinson did sounds responsible once you know that Moyers's infomercials for the Democrats are financed with tax dollars. Didn't the same press now getting worked up over Tomlinson complain recently about tax dollars going to pro-Bush content (from Armstrong Williams and the like)? If tax dollars shouldn't go to pro-Bush journalism, by that same reasoning the press should object to tax dollars going to Bill Moyers for anti-Bush journalism. [my emphasis]

There really isn't any counter to this argument other than "humina-humina-humina..." The law says PBS is supposed to be non-partisan; Mr. Tomlinson is simply attempting to follow the law; and Democrats are objecting because to follow the law doesn't help their political interests.

A familiar refrain these days, isn't it? Or, as Mr. Neumayr concluded:

The media's contrived contest of Tomlinson vs. PBS isn't politics vs. independence, but politics vs. politics. And Tomlinson's politics (which consists in this case of simply ensuring that a government agency under George Bush's control adheres to the philosophical balance the law establishing PBS mandated) is justified. He is, after all, a political appointee. The political maneuvering of PBS staffers isn't justified. They aren't political appointees.

But they are political activists. The difference between the two is that activists have no accompanying responsibility or accountability for their actions. Which is precisely why Mr. Tomlinson is so justified in moving to rein them in, and why they're attempting to outflank him by whining to their friends on Capitol Hill.

It's all another specactular chapter in the book I could write laying out chapter and verse why PBS should be abolished, along with a great many other Great Society pisspots. Demolition seems much less complicated than co-optation. That's the line of demarcation between small-government conservatism and its "compassionate" cousin, I suppose.

But you have to wonder a bit at the seeming unflappability of Mr. Tomlinson's statement regarding this CPB "review":

I welcome the call by Congressmen Dingell and Obey for the inspector general to examine issues related to my efforts to encourage public broadcasters to take more seriously the need that our current affairs lineup reflect objectivity and balance.

I look forward to working with the inspector general and with the Congress to clear up with finality distortions in press reports and elsewhere about our work to bring more diversity to public broadcasting.

Maybe he's thinking what Mr. Neumayr was unrestrained from coming out and saying:

The PBS Democrats are digging a hole for Tomlinson into which they will one day fall.