*ucker Carlson has his own reich-wing show on PBS, WTF?

[Deja Q]

Last night was a nightmare except I was awake.

I watched the news. In Minnesota, * has 52%, Kerry has 45%, and Nader has 1%. 2% undecided. Appalled, I turned to PBS. Little tommie Tucker, a big mother ****er (hey, it rhymes :-) ), now has his own show promoting the war, how a comedian can mix Jesus with comedy and still go to heaven... yuck.

I know PBS needs money, but do they really think they'll get more by kissing up to the rethugs? The rethugs don't want PBS at all (and even I will submit that PBS deserves taking money from the profiteering of Sesame Street characters, though it still deserves government backing...)

Sigh. If * wins, it's curtains. Dunno about Kerry, but I know where * is heading. And why are people preferring *? Don't they look at his overall record?! Or just listen to what he* says at the time and get excited?! (if the latter is true, America is getting what it deserves, though I pity the civilized world.)

[punpirate]

1. It's not so much about money...

... they still have enough. It's about the top management of the CPB entertaining the programming desires of the right wing. There have been grumblings in Congress about Bill Moyers' NOW ever since it first aired, with the expected claims that PBS was lopsidedly liberal because of that show. So, they went looking for conservatives.

In addition to Tucker Carlson's show, NOW goes down to thirty minutes and there will be a new show with the Wall Street Journal editorial board.

The whole notion of "balance" is ridiculous in terms of PBS and NPR. Those were supposed to be alternatives to the mainstream press, and now they are almost indistinguishable from the mainstream broadcasting.

Part of it is the management. I believe that the heads of CPB and NPR are former Voice of America and Radio Free Europe execs. Can't remember right now which is which. Experts at soft propaganda, at any rate, and that's what those networks have become--expert at soft propaganda.

[Sporadicus]

2. PBS Has Gotten Their Last Dime From Me

along with NPR (Neoconservative Petroleum Radio). Both entities have received diatribes from me, delineating in excruciating detail why they can go begging to their neocon apologist, corporate darlings for their funding. At least once every fund-drive season (four times a year in my area), I call up the local PBS station and both NPR affiliates in my area and tie up a phone line for 15 minutes or so, telling them why I'm not donating - not any more. Perhaps if more people did this, the local affiliates would begin to complain at a corporate level.

[Demit]

3. CPB board members tend to be big political donors w/agendas...

For example: Halpern and Gaines were Bush recess appointments to the board of the Corp. for Public Broadcasting in 2002 and 2003.

Info from www.commoncause.org/:

"President George W. Bush's most recent CPB appointees, Gay Hart Gaines and Cheryl Halpern, have along with their families given more than $800,000 to the Republican Party and candidates since 1995. ...During her confirmation hearing, Halpern indicated that she would welcome giving CPB members the authority to intervene in program content when they felt a program was biased...chaired Newt Gingrich's political committee GOPAC... Gingrich who as House Speaker proposed cutting all federal assistance to public television.

Current board chairman Kenneth Tomlinson has given $7,700 to Republicans since 1995, and has been active in Republican politics. A friend of Karl Rove, quoted in The New Yorker article as saying, "It is absolutely critical for people on the right to feel they have the same ownership stake in public television as people on the left have." Tomlinson has objected to Moyers' including commentary in his programs."

[ikojo]

4. Isn't *ucker's daddy some big wig with PBS?

I thought I had read that on DU. Like Bush he didn't get the job on his merit.

[jonnyblitz]

5. aaah, the (cough)" commies" at PBS must have left the building.

I guess the redbaiting calls for the "defunding" that we heard from every right wing crackpot group in the 90's are dying down...

[miss_kitty]

6. this is being addressed on Counterspin, FAIR's radio show

http://www.fair.org/counterspin/092404.html
you can download-it's the last part of the show, which is about 27 minutes

[peekaloo]

7. I woke up to that smarmy bastard this a.m.

Fell asleep watching the a rerun of 'Now' and awoke to that prick ripping on Kerry and his wife. Smug little bastard with his third grade picture day at school haircut and bow tie.

Remember when little Toadie Sucker went to Iraq and returned scared shitless over the lack of security and big things going boom day and night......now he supports it?

Eat Shit each and every one of you Bu$h ass lickers.