I don’t know whether or not you listen to NPR on a daily basis or not, gentle reader. I do, but then again I’m a news junkie and we do live in such interesting times. I’d hate to miss any of them, and say what you will about their “point of view,” the public broadcasting folks do a swell job of getting more insight into the news than does the other broadcast media.
Now, you have known me long enough to know that certain interpretations of the news – the spin, if you will, on objective facts – cause me to narrow my eyes, just a bit. Last weekend, just for one example, Republican Congressman-elect Brian Bilbray – a man whose nativist sympathies I hold no particular brief for, by the way – won a close fought election in the reliably Republican 50th district here in Sandy Eggo for the seat, ah… vacated by Duke Cunningham, about whom quite enough has been said in these spaces. A hard-fought campaign, a clear result, and how do we tell the tale? Well, the local spin here was not that Bilbray had “won,” but that “hope had faded” for his Democratic party adversary.
It is well and truly said in golf that every shot makes someone happy, but you know, they are so very sad: These “faded hopes.”
Of all the eye-narrowing going on up and down Highway 5 on any given day, little can compare to the analysis provided by erstwhile Clinton Labor Secretary (and current UC Berkeley prof) Robert Reich on the one hand, and “senior NPR correspondent” Daniel Schorr on the other. Of Reich, suffice it to be said that brilliance of intellect and garland of achievement cannot by themselves wipe clean poverty of spirit: He is, essentially, a dick. When the president nominated – to nearly universal acclamation – a new Treasury Secretary nominee, Goldman Sach’s Henry Paulson, Reich, another GS exec who’d attended undergrad with Paulson at Dartmouth (Paulson went on to earn an MBA at Harvard), couldn’t help but snark, “Knowing him at Dartmouth, I’d never have expected him to go so far.” They were classmates it seems, and now I also know that the word “classmate” has a very different connotation at Dartmouth than it does at say, the US Naval Academy. This particular petit assassin?
I see where he’s coming from. But his point of view is distorted by BDS.
If the “powerless” were fighting Kim Il or Ahmadinejad and not the US and Iraqi forces that are trying to free them from assholes that keep people powerless he’d have a point…
This is exactly why although I miss the superb Public Radio station back in Bloomington, I do not for a moment regret that I am deprived of NPR here in the backwater of AZ.
I honestly don’t know how you can stand to listen to them. I found that I could no longer enjoy their Sunday morning news show (as I had for years) once the build-up to the Iraq war began. It made me literally feel ill to listen to them.
Oh, and “let him run free across they Elysian fields of smug, self-righteous satisfaction?”
Superb characterization Schorr’s segments.
Lex,
Completely agree with your comments on Schorr. As I commute the 5 from NOLF IB up to Encinitas each day I find that it is almost impossible to listen to NPR which was for decades a friendly source of news.
I was sorry to miss you at the Fleet Synthetic thing. When the Admiral asked if there was somebody around from your branch the ready answer was the Lex was around here someplace…
Ever see the movie about the tobacco industry where the Dan Rather character says, ” I’m not going see out my final days out in the wilderness on NPR!”
Its also interesting in that this is one of the few times I actually know the guy being attacked on NPR. I think Harry Harris has a thankless job with GTMO. Its a lose-lose proposition. He’s in a very visible spot and has media trying to get in there all the time. His staff are primarily guys on 6 month and 1 year tours and he is on a base where no one can get off. If no one dies, he still gets criticized. If someone does die on his watch he gets criticized. He can’t win. The best he and his folks can do is tread water and look forward to the day they turn it over to someone else and move on.
I gave up NPR soon after 9-11 because, for all their insight into a story, it got too irritatingly predictable: US bad, everbody else victimized. I admire your intestinal fortitude, Lex.
I admire your fortitude Cap’n, listening to the likes of NPR these days, especially while driving. I can’t – where your eyes “narrow so tightly it’s a hazard to navigation”, I just drive off the road.
The situation in Haditha does remind of me the situation when we bombed Libya back in the day. Khadafi put women and children in “places of interest” so that when we did bomb them, he could trumpet that the ruthless Americans killed innocent civilians. Of course he could do that because, while he installed some of his own family members in the palace, he decamped for safer places.
Unlike the MSM, I’ll wait for the military investigations to reveal what they find out about Haditha. But it won’t be the first time American soldiers are set up to look like beasts, is all I’m saying.
As for Guantanamo – they are terrorists, period. One of the suicides was a Taliban member who was part of the fighting that killed CIA Agent Mike Spann. Lest we forget – they are murderous thugs. Whether they actually “pulled the trigger”, provided a safe haven to those who did or just believed and supported the terrorists in their hearts, they are fanatics who wish nothing but death to Americans, and would act out that wish given the slimmest chance. They get more at GITMO than they ever would have gotten in their own country – 3 squares, ample time to pray and worship, exercise and decent shelter. Oh, the freedom thing – meh.
Irritating, ain’t it? And partially funded by our tax $$. Sometimes I listen to it in the am on the way to work. Just 15 minutes is enough for a 10% rise in BP.
Mr. Schorr, and that Helen lady at those White House press conferences, ought to get hitched and retire to one of those retirement villas in South Florida, never to be heard of again.
B2
I gave up on NPR long ago, it just caused to much of a rise in my blood pressure. Regarding Mr. Schorr, he and the majority of the MSM remind me of a dog chasing their tail. They just run around in circles and can’t figure out why they haven’t gotten anywhere and why they can’t catch that tail.
Several years ago I heard a tongue n’ cheek commentary about a man that had “desensitized” himself to the blather on NPR so much so that “he could now drive his car and listen to Daniel Schorr without slamming the car into a tree!”
Back in the day, my mother used to call NPR “Radio Nicaragua”.
Lex – I’m with you on being a long-time NPR junkie and on your reaction to Mr. Schorr.
Two things drive me crazy about him:
1) in most every broadcast he manages to remind us that he was on Nixon’s enemies list some 30 years ago – this being his journalistic “street cred.” There’s a bit of Woodward & Bernstein “envy” in this if you ask me.
2) in most of his broadcasts (not this particular one) he doesn’t do much more than restate the obvious about a given situation – he doesn’t bring forth new ideas but rather takes a goodly amount of words to say, “This is bad.”
The insinuations he brings forth in the commentary you quote are typical for him, reflecting his view that all things governmental (Republican or military) are to be treated with the upmost skepticism. It’s a tired view, especially in the way he presents it.
Journalistic icon or not, I think NPR would do well to trundle him off into the sunset and bring in someone with a fresh point of view.
Enjoy those “driveway moments…”
Brian
NPR??? Masochist!!!
I’m with B2 on this– listening to NPR’s “Bodyguard of Lies” isn’t worth the added risk of a heart attack.
Such a happy-clappy universe they live in. Like Walter Duranty denying Stalin’s crimes. Gotta keep up that delusion of self-importance.
“The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on”
/old arab saying
I like NPR, for the same reason as Lex stated. Its really not so bad so long as you understand what you are getting into from the gitgo. Its a rare treat for me these days as I only get to hear it when I am in the states, with a rental car.
Although back in the day, when my daughter still acknowledged my existence, she used to refer to it as NBR-National Boring Radio!
Well said Sea Dog,the only program worth listining to on NPR is Car Talk..it’s consistently apolitical a total hoot and occasionally informative. Best
B2 – “Irritating, ain?
B2 – “Irritating, ain’t it? And partially funded by our tax $$.”
Yup.
NPR: Not Particularly Relevant
I also listen to NPR, just to monitor what the enemy’s thinking.
If American Thinker is correct, NPR’s factual coverage of Haditha (sloppily sourced, possibly even deceptive) leaves alot to be desired. Maybe that’s why Daniel Schorr is having so much trouble understanding it.
If they have committed journalistic malpractice on the taxpayer’s dime, momentum to reform NPR and clean out the bias, or do away with it all together, will increase.
I’ll admit it: When I turn on the radio, I want to hear music or some funny DJ’s or guests. I don’t like listening to NPR and their reporting. Reading this post has just made me even more determined NOT to listen to that load of crap.
To Capt J:
“Bodyguard of Lies”? If memory serves, Winston Churchill used that phrase to describe the aggressive protection of the truth in our intlligence war with the 3rd Reich in WW2. In full disclosure, it is good to be reminded that he described the most sensitive and precious of truths be protected by that bodyguard of lies.
The premise behind that phrase is that there is a truth to be protected. In the case of NPR, they have no basis for and of truth worth protecting. I, too, used to be an NPR junkie, but it was more for the music programming and not the news. I even dabbled in Prairie Home Companion until Garrison Keillor turned left in his weekly broadcasts. It’s a shame, but all that good has been denied to us all by the politics. And yet they don’t get it.
For The Record: See “Bodyguard of Lies” written by Anthony Cave Brown. It is out of print (late 70’s) but is one of the best books ever written about the Enigma machine used by the Allies to monitor German intelligence traffic.
Regards.
Brian beat me to it — did he mention that he was on Nixon’s enemies list?
And young turks? Geez, the NPR bunch is positively hoary, they are all “Veterans of ‘68,” and it shows in every piece they air.
That’s back when Schorr was on Nixon’s enemies list.
And the lisps. Did you ever notice that every intern and guest commentator they have lisps? It fits, really.
Daniel Schorr used to be on Nixon’s enemies list, too.
And the way they pronounce foreign names. Remember how they used to roll the “r” in Nicaragua (Radio Free Nicarague) to show their solidarity with the Sandinistas? Listen to them struggle with Arabic names these days. But do they afford the same respect to German, French, or Italian placenames? Not hardly.
Not since Schorr was on Nixon’s enemies list.
FlooseMan Dave is absolutely correct: Winston Churchill did indeed use that phrase to describe propaganda and information warfare to protect state secrets, like the Enigma code, which could have cost the Allies the war.
Well said, sir
I only borrowed the phrase in irony because NPR seems to feel that the lies of our enemies need an “equal time” bodyguard of “solidarity”. If the commentators pronounce the terrorists’ names right, maybe they’ll get their own heads cut off last..
Lex,
Excellent piece, not merely because I agree with every word, but that you have crafted them so well.
I too stomach NPR for news coverage when my options are severely limited, and know well to “narrow my eyes” at appropriate moments.
But I confess that Schorr aggravates me beyond measure, more surely than Robert Reich (who’s pettiness, self-absorption, and stale economic predictions you capture perfectly).
He remains completely transfixed to a political situation in which he is always at the forefront of the nobel press assault against governmental abuse. My guess he contributed to the Bush campaign anonymously; he’d had zero relevance throughout the Me Me Clinton years.
Stale. Partisan. Myopic. Ill-informed. A Giant in His Own Eyes.
If George Bush even imagined an enemies list, Schorr wouldn’t even make the C List of suspected enemy sympathizer. Not because he doesn’t hate Bush, but because his name wouldn’t even occur to Bush in suhc a context. Daniel Who? Didn’t he retire before Walter Cronkite?
“Of Reich, suffice it to be said that brilliance of intellect and garland of achievement cannot by themselves wipe clean poverty of spirit: He is, essentially, a dick.”
That sentence alone was worth the trip over here.
It continues to amaze me that NPR operates as it does. They produce a good product – so why are they oblivious to the fact they alienate as much of their audience as they keep?
Been listening to All Things Considered since Back In The Day when Cokie Roberts and Susan Stamberg were young hot babes. Was there for the start up of Morning Edition as well. But anyway, it has always been obvious that All Things Are Considered only from a liberal point of view there.
Mr. Schorr, one of Murrow’s progeny at CBS, fits in naturally at NPR. I must say though, I haven’t been able to listen to an entire commentary of his since his denture adhesive started failing him about 15 years ago and the over the top slurring he carried over from the Vietnam days at CBS became outright literal.
Seems to me the guy could shell out some bucks for some better fitting teeth.
?
“This is Daniel Schorr.”
Well at least he got one thing right.
NPR is great if listening to the most boreing and obscure music ever recorded makes your day. And, if listening to this music in a crowd somehow sets you above and apart from the great masses of the unwashed, then, with a little luck maybe, just maybe, you’ll be preceived as being as intellectually superior as you know you really are. And yes, Reich is a dick. What-the-hell.
I sent a note to Scott Simon, NPR “Weekend Edition Saturday” host, complimenting him on his consistent use of the word “alleged” in his commentary on Haditha, in which he uneqivocally stated that the culture and values of the US military are totally at odds with the claims of massacre. And he goes out of his way to affirm his belief that these are deeply-held values, not simply lip service.
That’s the good news… I also pointed out to Scott that simply tacking on “alleged” to the word “massacre” and then faithfully repreating the allegations being made was hardly balanced, but this in fact is what NPR has been doing.
There has been no mention of the several aspects of this “story” that are questionable to say the least, such as its source, delayed timing, and proclaimed but non-existent “photo evidence”.
Anyway , I want to acknowledge that Scott Simon at least tries to be fair most of the time. I have even heard him gently remind Dan Schorr that the things he is stating as fact, are in fact the claims of only one side of the story. It is a pleasure when it happens, but it doesn’t happen enough.
“So it?
“So it’s almost a Pavlovian response that whatever the United States does, there’s going to be a cadre of pretty sophisticated, elite, leisured people who are protected by other types of people who don’t share their beliefs, and they’re always going to be critical, they’re always going to be cynical, because let’s be honest. It fills some deep, psychological need in these people to hate the very system that created them, and makes life good for them…” –Victor Davis Hanson
‘On why the Left can’t rejoice in good news about the war’, as interviewed by Hugh Hewett on radioblogger.com
I listen to NPR faithfully. You have to keep up with the other side. Plus they provide more in depth coverage on nearly everything. Some of their stuff is just so unusual. However, Daniel Schorr is so hard to take…..that’s what usually drives me out of bed and into the shower.
I also love the BBC Newshour.
I listen to NPR mainly because there is so little decent radio on in the SF Bay area. NPR is often the only thing worth listening to around here. The content usually is quite decent, and Car Talk is one of the best things broadcast over the airwaves.
BTW, I’ve always called NPR “National Proletarian Radio”.
[...] I was reading Blackfive, which I enjoy even when it’s over the top. But a good tip o’ the hat to Matt for this article over at Lex’s blog. [...]
I used to be an NPR kinda guy, listening during drive-time, both coming and going. I’ve pretty much quit listening since I retired, because “drive-time” no longer exists. I still watch The News Hour with Jim Lehrer though, for much the same reasons you listen to NPR, Lex. Depth and insight. That said, I absolutely detest Gwen Ifill, who resembles Schorr in a lot of respects. While Ms. Ifill isn’t blatantly partisan a la Schorr, she simply cannot suppress the curled lip or other facial tics that give her away. And there are times when her line of questioning seems to badger conservative guests. I don’t believe the CPB will ever be truly non-partisan.
Completely off-topic, but I have to mention I stayed in a very nice suite at the NAS Brunswick BOQ during my visit to Maine last week. You guys are almost up to USAF standards these days. Now, if you would just start selling beer at the front desk…
[...] That I’m now?Ǭ
[...] That I’m now number 10 on google for Daniel Schorr. While maintaining my dominance at the top of the googleplex for rectal probing. [...]
Several weeks ago, on NPR, Daniel Schorr was asked to comment on the prevailing public view that today’s media are in a liberal tank for the Democrats. His reply: “We only give the public what it wants to hear!” This opinion probably underlies all liberal media, but no one has voiced it before.