It looks like the White House is getting ready to throw down the political gauntlet AGAIN — this time by proposing someone who used to be a former co-chair of the Republican National Committee to be in charge of the agency that funds Public Broadcasting:
A former co-chairman of the Republican National Committee is the leading candidate to take over the agency that funds public broadcasting, sparking new concerns among broadcasters about conservative influence over National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service programming.
Patricia de Stacy Harrison, a high-ranking official at the State Department, is one of two candidates for the top job at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and is the favored candidate of the CPB’s chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, according to people close to the search. The CPB is a congressionally chartered agency that directs taxpayer funds to PBS, NPR and hundreds of radio and TV stations.]
Let’s skip down to this:
Harrison has been appointed to jobs in the State and Commerce departments by President George H.W. Bush and the current President Bush. She was co-chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1997 until January 2001, helping to raise money for Republican candidates, including George W. Bush.
The Washington Post piece also goes into her praise of the State Department’s Office of Broadcasting Services, which has run pieces in favor of the Iraq an Afghanistan invasions — but that is no big deal. What did the Post expect: that she’d want the State Department to blast its own policy. There’s nothing untoward about that.
But look at (a)her PARTISAN background and (b) the political context of this likely nomination and appointment:
Harrison’s candidacy comes at a time when Tomlinson has stirred controversy by attacking PBS as having a liberal bias in its programs. Tomlinson, a longtime Republican, has advocated more balance on PBS’s schedule and has supported using CPB funds to produce news-discussion programs that take a conservative point of view. Critics, including veteran PBS newsman and commentator Bill Moyers, have said Tomlinson is trying to use CPB’s power to inject Republican ideology into PBS and National Public Radio programs.
Once again this administration has a huge pool of talent out there from which they could choose. They could pick any number of extremely well qualified Republicans, including staunchly conservative ones, to fill that slot. But they instead are getting ready to essentially throw down the gauntlet and pick the most partisan, divisive choice they can — someone who was actually a co-chair of the Republican party. You can’t get much plainer than that.
We can just hear the talk show hosts says “But PBS had Bill Moyers.” Yes. But the talk show hosts and many conservatives have blasted Moyers for many years not just for his liberal beliefs but precisely because he had worked in a Democratic administration. So rather than avoid doing the same thing, they clone it. (So if you heard these criticism from talk show hosts in the past: “Never mind!”)
The larger issue is that this is yet another example of a troubling take-no-prisoners style of this administration. By picking a former RNC co-chair — no matter how skillful, qualified or thoughtful she may be — they are putting out there something that in Hollywood is called “high concept”: an immediately defineable, recognizable “hook” that explains it all. This will be a RED FLAG for Democrats who will likely battle it. The wise course that would help national unity would be to pick someone who was not clearly tied to the Republican party or the Bush campaign.
It’s one more example of a style that seems to put a premium on divisiveness and political combat — perhaps stemming from a perception that doing something in a way that could accomplish the same political goal without inflaming those who may oppose you is somehow wimpish.
It’s a matter of choices — but for every choice there is a consequence.
UPDATE: In our comments under this post a reader did some research and notes that PBS-related NPR is hardly politically pristine. (We don’t do this often but he makes a good point). He writes:
Frank Mankiewicz was president of National Public Radio (NPR) from 1977 to 1983. He brought a variety of professional and political experiences and contacts with him to NPR that distinguished his tenure as president. He had years of experience as a journalist, writer of four books, television commentator, and syndicated columnist. In politics he had directed the Peace Corps’ Latin American division, was Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s press secretary, and directed the national presidential campaign for Senator George McGovern. He also practiced law for several years in California. Mankiewicz brought tremendous growth to NPR in the areas of programming, audience, distribution services, and budget. He is also associated with a financial crisis that hit NPR in 1983 and led to sizable layoffs and his own resignation.
Doug Bennet is best known for his decade (1983–93) as chief executive officer and president of National Public Radio.
NPR …announced that its fifth president will be Delano E. Lewis, a super-active Washington civic figure, lawyer, former Peace Corps leader, widely touted “people person” and 54-year-old African-American, who is president and c.e.o. of the city’s C&P Telephone Co. Lewis told reporters Aug. 20 [1998] that he’ll start work at NPR part-time in late September or early October and will go full-time when he finishes with the phone company’s pending rate case.
NPR was not looking for a journalist or a technical or financial expert, but “someone who could bring all these things together,” NPR Chairman Carl Matthusen said at the press conference.
The problem here, though, is that this is still a few notches down from actually putting a party co-chairman in charge. And the big issue remains: the in-your-face style of this White House which seemingly thinks consensus is a dirty word.
On the other hand, if John Kerry was elected would he have picked as PBS chief Bob Shrum? (That would have really sunk PBS..)
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.