National Public Radio is so liberal that even the weekend game shows ooze liberalism. On Saturday, the show "Whad'Ya Know" from Wisconsin Public Radio (heard on 260 stations) interviewed New York Times columnist Frank Rich on his new Bush-bashing book "The Greatest Story Ever Sold on Earth" for almost half an hour. Near the end (about 27 minutes into the first half-hour), host Michael Feldman went on a tear against the use of the term Islamo-fascism" to define the terrorists:
Feldman: "Also, that 'Islamofascism' thing they keep saying, which is so annoying, first of all because none of these governments are fascist, really. But the government is acting in a way which is quite fascistic, really, because it’s corporate, it’s authoritarian, it’s you know, it’s anti-liberal. That’s the definition of fascism, but they’re using this, this is a phrase they’ve decided to use."
Rich: "It must have been focus-group-tested. (laughter) There is no other explanation for it. You know, fascism, it sounds , it’s, you know, it’s out of 'Hogan’s Heroes.' And it’s utterly meaningless, too, because it’s not even a good definition of what the enemy is, because, if we know anything about al-Qaeda, and people like al-Qaeda, it’s cells that rise up from the ground, from the underground. Saddam Hussein was a fascist, but he was a secular fascist. He didn’t have anything to do with Islam. And so it just goes to show you it’s all about marketing, and not reality or even about identifying the enemy properly."
Feldman: "If anything, they’ve made the terror cells more democratic, really, so they can say that much."
Rich: "Yes, they can say the ‘Islamo-democracy,’ (laughter) I don’t think that would sell well."
Feldman: "The spread of democratic terror cells has been accomplished."
Our first question for the folks at NPR is if the Bush administration is authoritarian, why is it that it's somehow allowing liberal government-funded radio shows to malign them as fascists? Doesn't that deflate their hyperbole a bit?
Shows like this are quite indistinguishable than an Al Franken hour on Air America. Take another example. Near the show's beginning, two minutes in, Feldman joked: "Meanwhile, Bill Clinton kills and eats Fox News dweeb Chris Wallace. (Applause.) It was an ugly scene, and we can only hope O'Reilly has him on next." (Laughter, applause.) I think you have to be a liberal to laugh at that one.
