Mr. Rogers passionate plea for Public Broadcasting: '69
Rogers vs Tomlinson
What a great clip.
"Mr. Rogers appeared before Congress to oppose Richard Nixon's budget cutbacks for Public Broadcasting, and melted the cold heart of a Senator."
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Download "But the highlight of the hearing appears to have been Rogers' fifteen-minute testimony and his dialogue with the subcommittee chair, Senator John O. Pastore, a Democrat from Rhode Island. Pastore, who had not previously seen any of Rogers' work, indicated he was now anxious to view the program, told Rogers that what he heard gave him goosebumps, and that the impact of Rogers' testimony was "I think you just got your twenty million dollars." Congressional appropriations were made two years in advance; counting forward to 1971, PBS funding increased from $9 million to $22 million after the Pastore committee hearings....read on
Eric Boehlert: "Republicans have launched a heavy-handed campaign to correct public broadcasting's "liberal slant." There's just one problem: Most Americans don't think it has one....read on"
If we don't get out and vote-guys like Tomlinson will destroy everything we hold dear to our hearts.
Update: FDL has this from Boehlert's book about Tomlinson:
For Tomlinson and administration aides who privately cheered him on, the most obvious obstacle to his public crusade against PBS's alleged liberal bias was the polling Tomlinson's CPB paid for in 2002 and 2003. Conducted jointly by respeted Republican and Democratic firms that contacted 1,008 randomly selected participants from across the country, the polls showed not only that Americans held public broadcasting in extremely high regard, but the surveys also showed conclusively that the vast majority of Americans-both regular public broadcasting consumers as well as those who only occasionally sampled the programming-agreed the network did not have a problem with liberal tilt....read on
Eric's new book "LapDogs," is available now.
