Columnists: Larry Elder on NPR vs. Tax Cuts, Tony Blankley on Cartoon Jihad

February 11th, 2006 7:55 AM

Over at Townhall, columnist Larry Elder wrote about an interview on National Public Radio's "Fresh Air with Terry Gross." Most of the interviews and reviews on that show are about arts and culture, but politics are also a topic. It airs on at least 350 NPR affiliates across the country. Elder writes about her interview with former Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Holtz-Eakin about the inappropriateness of the Bush tax cuts. (Audio can be found here.) He centers in on the liberal questioning:

Gross: "This is the first time, as far as I understand it, that we've cut taxes during wartime. What does the math look like, paying for Iraq while cutting taxes?"

Gross: "Can you make the connection for us -- the amount of money that the tax cuts take out of the budget with the amount of money that the war adds to the budget?"

Gross: "So what advice would you have about the wisdom of continuing the tax cuts now, which is what the president would like to do?"

Brian Boyd recommended to me Tony Blankley's column on the cartoon jihad. There's at least six or seven cartoon-jihad columns on the Townhall columnists page this week. Blankley wrote: 

Those who argue for republication of the Danish cartoons are not "instigating" a clash of civilization. Nor are they pouring gasoline on a fire. Rather, they are defending against the already declared and engaged radical Islamist clash against the Christian, Secular, Jewish, Hindu, Chinese world by expressing solidarity with the firemen.

In this case, the firemen, perhaps surprisingly to some, is the European press. French socialist newspapers, The BBC, and other major secular European media stand shoulder to shoulder with a right-wing Danish newspaper against what they correctly see is an unyielding demand by radical Islam that Europe begin to start living under Sharia law.