Hypocrisy frustrates me no end. You can tell, can’t you? Usually, it’s right wing hypocrisy that gets me riled up most, simply because they’re in power and their hypocrisy is so blatant.
For instance: the Republicans have a love/hate relationship with “politics.” When the cameras are on and the microphones open, they moan and whine and sometimes are apoplectic about the other side “playing politics,” which in an of it self is hilarity at it’s finest — imagine, politicians playing politics, and the politicians in power upset about it! They must be pretty insecure in their position, don’t you think?
Anyway, here’s an example of the right wing doing exactly what they accuse the left wing of doing: inserting politics into something that is supposed to be non-political. Again.
A leading Republican donor who once suggested that public broadcasting journalists should be penalized for biased programs is the top candidate to succeed the controversial chairman at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, according to people at CPB and others in public broadcasting.
Cheryl F. Halpern, who was appointed to the CPB board by President Bush three years ago, is in line to replace Kenneth Y. Tomlinson as the head of the agency that distributes federal funds to noncommercial radio and TV stations and serves as a buffer between public broadcasting and politicians seeking to influence its news reporting and programming.
… Halpern and her husband, Fred, have been major financial supporters of Republican candidates for years. At one point during the 2004 elections, Mother Jones magazine ranked the Halperns among the nation’s top 100 “hard” money donors (contributions made directly to candidates, not party organizations) and said they contributed a total of $81,800 to, among others, President Bush and Republican Sens. Trent Lott (Miss.), Sam Brownback (Kan.), Conrad Burns (Mont.) and Christopher Bond (Mo.). The magazine said that 95 percent of their contributions during that election cycle went to Republicans.
It’s just hilarious to me how people still describe CPB as a “buffer” between PBS and politics.
