Often liberals remark that while conservatives make really stupid remarks, the left can be just as dense. But it is hard to recall specifics sometimes, so I thought I would record one I just heard. A caller to npr referred to it as National Pentagon Radio and stated it doesn’t cover the misbehavior of our military. How to account for such a stupid comment? Anyone listening to npr knows the right, the conservatives, the Republicans, hate npr in part b/c its reporters and commentators constantly cover the misbehavior of our military. So what is this guy talking about? Clearly, what he is looking for is exactly what those idiots on the right are looking for: complete and total acceptance of their views, recognition that they are geniuses, and, most importantly, the exclusion of any view that goes counter to theirs. By that reason, npr is anti-Israel, anti-American, anti-military, anti-whatever and on the left it is regarded as anti-poor people (i.e. provide large cash grants to all poor people), anti-justice (i.e. release immediately the prisoner I believe is innocent), anti-immigrant (i.e. open the borders to anyone without question), and so on. I’m vaguely recalling comments I’ve heard over the years. That’s why I wanted to record this comment from the left since liberals like me tend to remember idiocies on the right.
Oct. 9 addition:
Somewhere I may have used this example but it certainly goes here as well as on my other item, which I cannot find. Someone sent me his complaints about npr, specifically its coverage of a particular issue. He complained that npr’s coverage was ridiculously one-sided, not just slanted. So I thought hard about this and kept listening to the coverage and finally realized what the problem is: npr gives the OTHER SIDE a voice. The very idea that horrible, horrible people i.e. ones I disapprove of, get a voice is evidence of complete and total bias.
This same person got very upset that Ahmadinejad was given a forum in the U.S., esp at Columbia. Again, this is a person he disaproves of, to say the least, and he therefore should be deprived of a forum even in an arena devoted to hearing all viewpoints. Failure to shut these people down is prima facie evidence of perfidy and stupidity as well as hopeless bias.
This attitude is where we get the conservative characterization of academics and religious leaders as living in the clouds, unrealistic, giving comfort to our enemies, etc. The understanding those who complain of giving undesireables a forum have is that you are weak and/or biased yourself if you give anyone on the “bad” list a forum, an opportunity to be heard. Interviewing them on the radio and airing their side of the story is tatamount to siding with them.
Therefore, because npr interviews people on both sides of the issue, npr is totally devoted to the side the complainers don’t like.