Has Daniel Schorr gone over to the dark side?

[AlabamaYankee]

I haven't listened to Weekend Edition (or much of any NPR) for some time, but just happened to catch Dan Schorr's commentary this morning. In the first issue, the Sunday morning terror alert, he seemed to give full credence to its validity, and dismissed the "wag the dog" aspects. No mention of the breaking story of the exposed Pakistani double agent. In the second part he talked about the Swift Boat ad, and rather than dismiss it as a vile dirty trick, his comment was along the lines of "You just can't tell what the facts are anymore."

He's fallen a long way from being a reliable liberal voice on the increasingly conservative NPR. Has anyone else noticed this?

[Cha]

1. Sounds pretty dark to me or Senile!

Or both!

[Dookus]

2. I think it's unfortunate

that any journalist should be considered a "reliable liberal voice" just as much as any journalist should be a "reliable conservative voice".

In an ideal world, you wouldn't know the politics of any journalist.

[Junkdrawer]

3. I think Dan (and Bob Edwards before he left) know full well...

what is allowed on NPR these days and he goes along. I guess the alternative is to get "Liberal" hung around your neck and then be dismissed lest someone complain that "NPR is too liberal" because they have one or two "liberal" analysts.

Sad - and they've lost my support.

[Jack Rabbit]

4. That's not necessarily going to the Dark Side

I didn't hear the report, so this is based entirely on your post.

If Mr. Schorr is attempting to evaluate this latest alert on its own merits and concludes that there might be something to it, that's fine.

The problem isn't whether or not the Bushies are playing politics with this latest warning. The problem is that they have played politics with terrorism, including previous warnings. The point of Aesop's fable about the boy who cried "wolf!" is that no one believed him when he sounded a legitimate alarm because of all the false alarms he willfully sounded.

The issue is, as you characterize Mr. Schorr's remarks, "You just can't tell the facts anymore." The Bush Administration has lost credibility. The American people need to know that when an administration spokesman says there is good reason to believe that al Qaida is planning a strike at the US or that a hostile tyrant has powerful weapons which he plans to use against us that there really is a firm basis for such a warning. The only way we are going to get that trust back in what the government says about public safety and national defense is to change administrations.

[redstateblues]

5. Daniel Schorr is reliably grouchy.