Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.comment From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: A minor league for networks Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 15:30:30 EST Message-ID: \SE F;COMMENTARY \SS (WS) \HD A minor league for networks \BY L. Brent Bozell III More and more personalities from National Public Radio are working their way into private media outlets. NPR's Cokie Roberts has found lots of work with ABC News, as a "World News Tonight" correspondent and panelist on "This Week With David Brinkley." Linda Wertheimer is a frequent guest panelist on CNN's "Capital Gang." Another NPR star, Nina Totenberg, gained fame from her one-woman crusade to defeat the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. She has been recruited by NBC's "Today Show." Each of these women regularly participates in political discussions on these and other shows - presenting the same liberal, NPR-esque point of view. But the most recent, notable NPR crossover has been Scott Simon, now co-host of NBC's weekend "Today Show." From this new perch, Mr. Simon continues to vent his liberal opinions on the issues of the day. On Sept. 5, he delivered a lecture on the economy that sounded a lot like a Clinton-Gore commercial: "According to the Census Bureau, 35.7 million people are living in poverty, 2 million more than before. . . . But aiming blame at politicians may actually steer blame away from ourselves. Over the last generation, after all, we elected politicians who gave voice to our grievances and reduced what the government could regulate and guarantee . . . The financial wealth of the United States has doubled, but the number of poor people has stayed the same. Instead of trickling down, apparently that wealth mostly stayed in the tight fists of those who became richer." On Columbus Day weekend, Mr. Simon paid tribute to political correctness by railing against the explorer: "Christopher Columbus didn't discover a New World. He ran into the other side of the world. . . . In the past year or more, many people have been asking, 'What's to commemorate in that?' " Of course, race found its way into the discussion: "He sailed just as Jews and Muslims were being expelled from Spain, the persecution of these peoples and the riches robbed from them paying for his small armada of ships. . . . For Native Americans, the people who hardly felt discovered, Columbus' landing commenced a holocaust." On the issue of homosexual rights, Mr. Simon has rejected any pretense of objectivity. On Oct. 3, Mr. Simon lectured former Republican presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan: "Mr. Buchanan, some surveys have suggested that your speech at the Republican Convention, in which you specifically denounced gay rights and some other speeches there have promoted a lack of tolerance, an incivility, a lack of manners in a sense, among certain Republicans that has not gone over well with American voters. Not just gay Americans, but people who feel homosexual rights is a basic civil rights issue. Have you hurt the Republican ticket with those remarks this year?" Following his ambush of Mr. Buchanan, Mr. Simon cozied up to Jeff Yarborough, editor in chief of the homosexual magazine The Advocate: "Did [Buchanan's convention speech] in any way do the gay community a favor? . . . It's called Americans of every sexual preference together to say that this is a human rights issue. In that sense, has it cut against the people who wanted to, maybe from your point of view, further inflict your community with ignorance?" On Oct. 17, as Bill Clinton was being pressured about his activities in Europe during the Vietnam War, Mr. Simon rushed to the aid of the '60s anti-war movement: "And the cruel truth was that there were more Vietnamese ready to die for their country than there were Americans ready to die for a country that wasn't theirs at all. . . . For many Americans, including many who served there, the war in Vietnam wasn't to defend the United States, but to prop up a corrupt and brutal South Vietnamese dictatorship. . . . It may be useful for any politician who may be president to recall almost a generation later how that war really felt to people who didn't feel they were being asked to defend their country, but punish a smaller one." Fortunately, people are starting to recognize Mr. Simon for what he is. The very next week, Mr. Simon held up a huge pile of letters from viewers outraged over his Vietnam War commentary. He pleaded with his viewers to believe that it was not, in any way, a defense of Bill Clinton. The rising tide of recruitments from National Public Radio to the networks begs the question: Why should we, as taxpayers, subsidize these people so that they can move into the private sector and push network news coverage further to the left? Baseball, hockey and basketball have their "farm teams" to scout and develop talent. The liberal networks have public broadcasting. L. Brent Bozell III is chairman of the Media Research Center. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM