Not a great week for public broadcasting. First, Gwen Ifill of PBS joined the herd of "leftist dullards" who reflexively chided Sarah Palin for saying "party like it's 1773," when she obviously meant 1776, demonstrating it's more important to mock a rightwing exremist than to do a simple Google search on the date. Then, NPR officials fired opinion journalist Juan Williams for expressing an opinion, even joking that he might be crazy for having such an opinion. Critics had a of fun making the obvious point about liberal advocates of tolerance being some of the most intolerant people on the planet and citing all the opinions Nina Totenberg has made that are apparently acceptable to the NPR censors since they conform to liberal orthodoxy.
There's an easy answer: Stop federal funding for both PBS and NPR and let them sink or swim in the marketplace. Then they can spout all the nonsense they want, and I won't have to pay for it. Whatever arguments there have been for public funding of these institutions, they don't really apply anymore. Between cable channels and the growing importance of the Internet, everything is out there, from the most liberal to the most conservative viewpoint, from the worst in quality to the best and everything in between. There's no justification to subsidize one particular viewpont or pay for one definition of "quality" that can't find an audience on its own.
Republicans have threatened to cut off funding in the past, but then they get cold feet. This would be an excellent year for them to make good on the threats. I mean, it's like they're being dared to.
