Cal Thomas: Bias runs deep at PBS
Does this statement by Moyers on his Nov. 8, 2002, “NOW” program sound like it comes down on the side of the public? “The entire federal government — the Congress, the Executive, the Judiciary — is united behind a right-wing agenda for which George W. Bush believes he now has a mandate. That mandate includes the power of the state to force pregnant women to give up control over their own lives. It includes using the taxing power to transfer wealth from working people to the rich. It includes giving corporations a free hand to eviscerate the environment and control the regulatory agencies meant to hold them accountable. And it includes secrecy on a scale you cannot imagine. … And if you like God in government, get ready for the Rapture.”
Moyers is entitled to his views. What he is not entitled to is taxpayer money to promote them. …
Tomlinson is addressing the bias that inhabits the minds of those who believe liberalism is truth.
“[T]he bias that inhabits the minds of those who believe liberalism is truth.” Notice this very slick phrase. It implies that those who believe sham-conservatism is the truth have no biases. It more strongly suggests that it isn’t possible for any liberal thought to actually be true (or any bogus-conservative thought to be false). It hints that liberalism is a mental illness. Nice guys we’re playing with, don’t you think?
Here are a few things Calcified Cal studiously ignores — his is an assiduously cultivated ignorance.
I’m a taxpayer and I can name more taxpayers who disagree with Cal than agree with him. So, if they can use my tax money to make bunker-busting nuclear bombs that violate international treaties and up the arms race, then they can spend 1/1000th as much of Cal’s on PBS.
Most of PBS is educational, informational, and, lastly, entertainment. Very little is really news, though, of course, to Cal’s ilk, everything is propaganda, for or against his views.
Bill Moyers left PBS more than 6 months ago. NOW was reduced to 30 minutes a week. A couple of weeks ago, I saw an interview of 15 minutes with a journalist on the rise of the dominionists (the most self-righteous of the neo-non-con-artists) and then, gasp, 10 minutes or more of the infamous Roy Moore, who says if you ain’t Christian, you ain’t an American. Pretty close to balanced; two minutes more of Moore and I would have shot my TV. He’s nuts. But that impression comes from nobody but himself.
I have only seen Calcified Cal Thomas once (though I flagellate myself with his columns quite often). Where? On NOW, in an interview with Bill Moyers. Why do you suppose Cal chooses not to mention his opportunity to stand up to Bill and the rest of us? Could it be that he realized THE TRUTH undermined his screed? This was not just a 30 second sound byte used to distort his views, it was a real interview where he steadfastly represented himself as would anyone who hasn’t the slightest doubt he is speaking for god and talking to a child. I would gladly watch Cal again in some environment where he wasn’t free to bloviate without any balance — the very thing he claims he wants — that would not be on FOX. He is articulate and courtly, like an unlovable grandfather ready to hit you with his cane.
The Radical Wrong believes there is only one truth: someone’s ‘literal’ interpretation of the Bible. Everything else is subject to opinion: worthwhile opinions coming from those they agree with and seditious/blasphemous (no difference anymore) opinions used by awful people they disagree with to fuck up a world that would be wonderful if only we were all shipped off to Gitmo.
The Radical Wrong works relentlessly at discrediting all sources of information not in their steely grasp. Therefore, all of PBS is untrustworthy because of one former employee and all of FOX is god’s word because of Cal. Sweet con they’ve got; all they had to do was delude themselves first, then move on to the rest of us. mjh