Sunday, October 16, 2005

Unperturbable Anchorettes

This article discusses the avoidance of the word "Islamic" in news reports and specifically address's Islamic terror/militantism in Russia. But moreover it knocks one of my favorite people to knock:

"Ah, 'Islamic militants.' So that's what the rebels were insurging over. In the geopolitical Hogwart's, Islamic "militants" are the new Voldemort, the enemy whose name it's best never to utter. ... And NPR's "All Things Considered" had one of those bland interviews between one of its unperturbable anchorettes and some Russian geopolitical academic type in which they chitchatted through every conceivable aspect of the situation and finally got around to kinda sorta revealing the identity of the perpetrators in the very last word of the geopolitical expert's very last sentence.

... And then, right at the end, having conducted a perfect interview that managed to go into great depth about everything except who these guys were and what they were fighting over, the Russian academic dude had to go and spoil it all by saying somethin' stupid like "republics which are mostly . . . Muslim." He mumbled the last word, but nevertheless the NPR gal leapt in to thank him and move smoothly on to some poll showing that the Dems are going to sweep the 2006 midterms because Bush has the worst numbers since numbers were invented."

That's pretty much what I hate about NPR. I'll watch "Real Time" and listen to "Democracy NOW!" and get mad, but they are more of a "wow, they are from Mars!" kind of effect. NPR has this smooth, calm, mother-knows-best voice that just leave enough facts to twist the truth. My recent favorite is when they in a soft, cooing voice after being ushered in by Chinese lute strums, claimed once that not giving out the draft constitution meant most Iraqis won't know what they were voting on---then when delaying the finalization allowed for and 11th hour compromise NPR argued the charter had tabled the real problems for later. Wow. You know maybe if libs didn't shoot holes in every thing conservatives did we'd listen to them more. And maybe they might just have one idea that will agree on--without having to resort to the snooty, trickery displayed above.

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