There’s a huge hole in all of the public discussion about the reimposition of a "Fairness Doctrine" or a return to "localism" on the talk-radio format: What about National Public Radio? Liberals would like to "crush Rush" and his conservative compatriots by demanding each station balance its lineup ideologically. But since when has NPR ever felt any pressure to be balanced, even when a majority of taxpayers being forced to subsidize it are center-right?

Why no Fairness Doctrine attention to NPR? It is because those preaching "fairness" on the radio are hypocrites.

Conservatives argue that the media’s liberal bias drives people to talk radio for an opposing viewpoint. Limbaugh jokes: "I am the balance." But new numbers from NPR suggest its ratings may be nearly as imposing as Limbaugh’s: The cumulative audience for its daily news programs – "Morning Edition" and its evening counterpart, "All Things Considered" – has risen to 20.9 million per week.

Unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers got a "distinguished professor" reception for most of the hour on NPR’s nationally distributed show Fresh Air with Terry Gross on Tuesday. But Gross was much more hostile to Bill O’Reilly back in 2003 than she was to Ayers.

On Wednesday, the NPR talk show Fresh Air with Terry Gross aired an interview about Sarah Palin with Michael Carey, columnist and former editorial page editor of the Anchorage Daily News and public broadcasting host (of a political talk show called Anchorage Edition).

Republicans are welcome on National Public Radio – especially if they’re former Republicans who think the Bush-Cheney administration is a reckless disaster. On April 17, NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross interviewed former Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee, who’s now left the GOP and gone independent. He has a new book titled "Against the Tide: How a Compliant Congress Empowered a Reckless President." Chafee wasn’t kidding: he told Gross the Democratic opposition was too weak, and regretted not contesting President Bush’s election in 2000, as the Congressional Black Caucus requested. NPR’s Fresh Air site also reprinted an excerpt from Chafee’s book, as he described his horror at a meeting with Dick Cheney pressing his "clashist" agenda.

But Chafee’s GOP primary opponent in 2006, Cranston mayor Steve Laffey, also wrote a book (published last September) called Primary Mistake, complaining that the national GOP favored the hopelessly liberal Chafee. NPR and Fresh Air didn’t grant him a book interview. The ideology didn’t match as neatly as NPR’s and Chafee’s did. Here’s a part of the interview where Chafee underlines how nobody in Washington stands up to the Bush-Cheney machine:

On Friday, the NPR chat show Fresh Air with Terry Gross (aired on over 400 stations from WHYY in Philadelphia) carried two interviews on science and religion.