Public Broadcasting Targeted By House

A house subcommittee has recommended the elimination of the federal government's financial support for public broadcasting, a move that in particular would adversely affect smaller independent stations. From the Washington Post article:

PBS, in particular, drew harsh criticism in December from the Bush administration for a 'Postcards From Buster' episode in which Buster, an animated rabbit, 'visited' two families in Vermont headed by lesbians. And programming on both PBS and NPR has come under fire in recent months from Tomlinson, the Republican chairman of the CPB, who has pushed for greater 'balance' on the public airwaves.

Now for the surprising part (tone of sarcasm): the committee is comprised of seven Democrats and TEN Republicans. Is it not enough that they own Congress and the Presidency, and are well on their way to owning the judicial system? So basically what our Republican-controlled government would be saying is, "If we disagree with anything you say we will pull the rug out from under you financially to get you off the air."

Sounds pretty fascist to me.

This isn't a done deal by any means; they've tried this before a decade ago (under Gingrich's leadership) and it didn't work. I listen to NPR every day and, aside from the occasional lapse (Terry Gross' totally biased confrontation with Bill O'Reilly being a glaring one) I believe it's programming to be pretty balanced. Of course, my über-conservative counterparts would probably cry foul and call me a raging liberal because I believe that journalism should cover the facts and not hide from the realities of our times (Iraq war casualites, alternative lifestyles, the poisoning of our environment by big business, and so on), and not be subservient to a fantasy world of pseudo-narcissistic religious mythologies.

Don't even get me started on the flag-waving, "fair and balanced" programming of Fox News.