Juan Williams and NPR Fund Raising

NPR has no doubt gotten a deluge of negative comments about firing Juan Williams, but I'm guessing from the tone discussed in this Washington Post article that much of it was ginned up by Fox News and other conservative media outlets. Those outraged people were not likely to be donors to NPR in any case, and probably don't even listen to it. They get their marching orders from Fox, Rush and Sarah Palin.

The cutoff of Federal funding may be more problematic, but it was likely to come anyway if the Republicans win majorities in November. If they are willing to cut funding for Social Security, they are certainly willing to cut funding for NPR, Juan or no Juan.

Juan Williams Fired by NPR

As if to show that political correctness can be evenhanded, Juan Williams was fired by NPR for comments about Muslims after Rick Sanchez was fired by CNN for comments about Jews. To me, everybody is to blame. First there's too much "talk" on cable TV and talk radio. People say outrageous things to fill up time, or they say things that they haven't thought through because they have to keep talking off the top of their heads. On the other hand, people should be able to say things that are reasonable, whether or not they are absolutely true, like "Jews control the media," or "Muslims in full headgear on a plane make me nervous." On the other hand, these pundits get paid to talk on TV, and the good ones say interesting things without crossing some invisible political correctness border.

I happen to agree with both Juan Williams and Rick Sanchez; so, I'm sad to see them punished for speaking their minds. I'm sure that NPR has been looking for an excuse to fire Juan Williams for being a Fox News commentator, and I frankly think that is somewhat justified, because Fox has a definite political point of view that Juan Williams helps sell on the air, even if he sometimes differs with the more doctrinaire Fox commentators. He has been trading on his NPR affiliation to give credance to Fox's right wing commentary.

Rick Sanchez and the Jewish Media

I’m unhappy about the flap over CNN anchor Rick Sanchez. In case you missed it, he was fired for saying during a radio interview that Jews control the media, or something like that. I was particularly upset with the hatred dumped on him by Howard Kurtz, who was the media critic for the Washington Post, and who has a show, "Reliable Sources," about the media on CNN. He is Jewish, and he had some other Jewish media types join him as commentators to dump on Sanchez. It’s ironic, because Sanchez is Cuban, and I’m not crazy about Cubans either. Sanchez basically said (not really quoting; here's the real transcript): "Jews are not an oppressed minority (look at how they control the media), but I’m Cuban; I’m an oppressed minority." I’d say Cubans are not an oppressed minority either if you look at how influential they are in Florida. Many years ago, there was an article in The Economist about how Jeb Bush got his start in Florida from some corrupt Cuban businessman, a big contractor, I think. He enabled Jeb to make his first million and go into politics.

The problem for me is that I think what Sanchez said is true, but it’s politically incorrect to say it. If it’s not true, they should refute it, not lambaste him for being anti-Semitic. It’s a difficult issue. The fact that Jews control the media (to a large extent) may not be bad. They are very smart. (Is that racist to say?) Jews own the New York Times, which I love, and the Washington Post. Some of my favorite columnists are Jews – David Brooks, Tom Friedman and Andrew Ross Sorkin, who write for the Times. My main complaint is that most Jews cannot be unbiased about Israel, although I think Friedman is as unbiased as anybody (Jew or gentile) can be. I think the 9/11 attacks were at least in part a response (by crazy fanatics) to US support for Israel. You can argue that the fanatical Muslim reaction should not stop us from supporting Israel, but that issue never gets discussed rationally, because it’s politically incorrect. If you bring it up, you’re anti-Semitic. Is the price of oil double what it would be if we didn’t treat Israel like a 51^st state? We’ll never know.

Looking for info on the Sanchez saga, I found this NPR blog, which I think defends Sanchez and criticizes Stewart better than I can. Plus the writer says she is Jewish; so, I guess that's why she's smarter than I am. I really like Jon Stewart, and I'm saddened that his episode has taken some of the gloss off of my admiration for him.

I can't find the Economist article I remember about Jeb Bush; I don't think the on-line archives go back far enough. This article from the St. Petersburg Times, however, is right on point. There are allusions to some questionable business dealings with Cubans in Wikipedia. Here and here are copies of a 1992 article from Mother Jones about Jeb's questionable dealings with the Cuban community.

I guess the lesson of this is that every ethnic group builds shady, mafia-like networks -- WASPs (the Bush family), Jews (finance and the media), Cubans (Florida real estate and CIA shenanigans), and of course the original mafia, the Italians.

Fox and Pravda

Fox News reminds me of the old Soviet Communist newspaper Pravda. Back in the bad, old Cold War days, people said the US would become more like the Soviet Union. Well, I think it has happened Like Pravda, Fox present the news as it would like it to be, not as it is, despite the "fair and balanced" claim.

As the names of the main Communist newspaper and the main Soviet newspaper, Pravda and Izvestia, meant "the truth" and "the news" respectively, a popular Russian saying was "v Pravde net izvestiy, v Izvestiyakh net pravdy" (In the Truth there is no news, and in the News there is no truth).

This development was predicted in George Orwell's book 1984, where, according to Wikipedia:

The Ministry of Truth controls information: news, entertainment, education, and the arts. Winston Smith works in the Minitrue RecDep (Records Department), "rectifying" historical records to concord with Big Brother's current pronouncements, thus everything the Party says is true.