Thursday, May 12, 2005

PBS Now Part of Right-Wing Conspiracy

Drudge reports that two of Congress's loopiest members, Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., and Rep. John D. Dingell, D-Mich., have asked the Inspector General of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (of which they have legislative oversight responsibility) to "investigate" what is described as an expansion of conservative programming on "public television." Here is the CPB's official version of their responsibilities to "balance" coverage and viewpoints on public television; here is a link to their ombudsmen's page. (But watch out for that ombudsman if you like blogs!)

Presumably the duo was tipped off by this New York Times story last week alleging GOP pressure to make changes at the the longtime liberal reservation known as public broadcasting.

It's bad enough that the entire broadcast regulation regime is a troubling farce based on a ridiculous fiction. (I'll be sure and let you know when I have a strong opinion on the subject!) But the idea of taxpayer-subsidized public broadcasting, inevitably doomed to become a political tug of war -- albeit only decades after the right should have realized what was going on -- is at least as silly. You can understand why the goofy Europeans, given their statist leanings and relatively weak speech protections, would tolerate such nonsense. But why do we?

UPDATE: Great coverage at The American Spectator.

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