At last, for the first time in weeks, I managed a day that I didn’t have drive into Washington or spend all day in my home office here in Great Falls, Virginia working my tail off. Friday night, I took Cerise out on the town and this morning, we slept until ten, when I arose to prepare free-range eggs Benedict with fresh white Belgian asparagus and goat milk butter Hollandaise sauce, accompanied by Tattinger mimosas I made with Mineola oranges, hand juiced in my own kitchen. The astute reader can no doubt guess what followed breakfast.
No sooner were the festivities concluded, however, than my land line warbled its fateful tune. It was Ima Saignements-Coeur, public affairs secretary at NPR.
Ima: Hello? Tom? I hope I haven’t called at an inconvenient time.
Tom: No; twenty minutes ago wouldn’t have been good, but now is fine.
Cerise: Who is it?
Tom: It’s Ima Saignements-Coeur, from NPR.
Cerise: Oh, really? Say hi for me won’t you Tom? I’m going to take shower. Tell her thanks for the invitation to the Kennedy Center next week, but I’m going to be out of town.
Tom: Cerise says hi.
Ima: Oh, that’s nice. Hi to her, too.
Tom: She also says she’s going to be out of town next week and can’t make it to the Kennedy Center, but thanks for the invitation.
Ima: Oh, what a shame. Maximum India is a very important event series, and the Kerala Kalamandalam Kathakali Troupe is a truly incredible experience; and completely sold out, by the way.
Tom: Duty calls, I’m afraid.
Ima: No problem. There are lots of other people I know who would love to go. Anyway, Tom, the reason I called…
Tom: The Schillers.
Ima: Uh… ah… er… yes, I guess you could put it that way, although it’s not like they’re… related or anything.
Tom: And, as of yesterday, Betsy Liley, too.
Ima: Um… yeah… I guess those telephone call audio recordings of hers don’t sound very good, either.
Tom: You can say that again.
Ima: Gee, Tom, I’m sure you, of all people, must realize what a sneaky, unprincipled, reprehensible little bastard that James O’Keefe character is.
Tom: Oh, I don’t know. After all, he’s only dangerous to people who have lost touch with reality, isn’t he? Nobody who has their head screwed on straight is going to say or do the kinds of things that Ron Schiller did, are they?
Ima: Ron’s a fund raiser, and everybody knows fund raisers are so full of bull manure, they could qualify as DOE certified sources of green energy biomass! Of course he was telling those people what he thought they wanted to hear. That was his job!
Tom: It was Ron Schiller’s job to accept five million dollars to fund NPR operations from the Muslim Brotherhood?
Ima: May I point out that, as a matter of fact, the five million dollars wasn’t even real?
Tom: And that makes it okay?
Ima: Well, I’d say it makes it more or less a moot point, at the very least.
Tom: What? Is there something in the water at 635 Massachusetts Avenue, Northwest? Earth to NPR – you can’t take money from Uncle Sam and al-Qaeda at the same time.
Ima: That’s pretty strange then, because I don’t notice anybody complaining that Representative Peter King supported the Irish Republican Army, and last time I checked, they were just as much a terrorist organization as al-Qaeda – and I think they may have killed more innocent people than al-Qaeda, actually.
Tom: I’m sure they have. Two wrongs, however, don’t make a right.
Ima: But three do. Ask any member of Congress. Come on, Tom, everyone at NPR does everything they can to deliver the highest quality journalism anywhere! We bend over backwards to be fair, unbiased and honest. We never present opinion as news and no NPR reporter ever lets their personal ideology – whatever it may be – influence what our listeners hear. And neither Ron Schiller or Betsy Liley had anything at all to do with NPR journalistic or editorial activities. I don’t want to brag, but damn it, Tom, NPR is a paragon of professional integrity and one of the finest news organizations in the history of broadcasting!
Tom: That and five dollars will get NPR a venti latte at Starbucks. Now, what can I do for you?
Ima: How do we keep Congress from cutting off our funding?
Tom: I thought I heard Ron Schiller tell Jim O’Keefe’s ersatz filthy-rich Arab terrorists that NPR doesn’t need federal money.
Ima: And I just got through reminding you that fund raisers are chock full of road apples! Of course we need the money!
Tom: Why? Pacifica Radio doesn’t get federal funding. They’re totally independent, non-commercial, listener-supported progressive…
Ima: The Pacifica Radio Network has a grand total of five stations in it, Tom; count ‘em: five! NPR has hundreds, in all fifty states and the District of Columbia. There’s simply no comparison. Sure, only a couple percent of the NPR Headquarters budget comes out of that four hundred million bucks a year, but if we lose that money, over half of our rural affiliates will have to shut down!
Tom: Meaning what – that Bubba and Jethro won’t get to listen to Radiolab anymore?
Ima: No… meaning that, in most cases, there won’t be any public radio at all out in the boondocks were Bubba and Jethro live.
Tom: Meaning that, there never were – and never will be – enough people in Dogpatch and Podunk willing to contribute enough money to even run a dinky little rural NPR affiliate station without a considerable federal subsidy.
Ima: And what, may I ask, keeps all the dinky little family farms where people like Bubba and Jethro – who live in places like Dogpatch and Podunk – from going straight down the toilet, year after year? What keeps them from being bought out by ConAgra or ADM? Federal subsidies, that’s what!
Tom: Yeah, well, I’ve always said the only difference between a farmer and a welfare queen is that the farmer has to get out of bed at four thirty in the morning and bust his hump for sixteen hours to qualify for his government check. Look, Ima, you folks at NPR have to realize that this is total war, that your actual opponent is the TEA Party, and that their objective is your complete annihilation. And you’re going to lose unless you accept that and start acting accordingly. Now, the way I see it, NPR has two possible courses of action, neither of which excludes the other. First, you can explore ways to punk the opposition.
Ima: Meaning what?
Tom: Do I have to spell it out? On one hand, you have, say, Senator DeMint, and on the other hand, you have some spunky NPR interns. Use your imagination. Fool him. Get a video of him, for instance, saying something incredibly stupid and utterly embarrassing. God knows, he already says incredibly stupid things often enough, so you’ve got half the battle right there. All you have to do is work up the utterly embarrassing part.
Ima: All right. What’s the other option?
Tom: You could change your programming.
Ima: Change it?
Tom: Well, add to it anyway. I mean, face it, Ima, the current NPR lineup isn’t going to win you any friends in the TEA Party.
Ima: You’re saying, they’re mad at us because we produce All Things Considered, Fresh Air, Talk of the Nation, On Point and Morning Edition?
Tom: And Tell Me More. And The Diane Rehm Show.
Ima: And those shows make them mad?
Tom: Hopping mad.
Ima: But… but… how come? Those shows are all insightful, informative, intelligent and interesting. What…
Tom: All of the above! Any one of those is enough to make your typical TEA Party type lose their temper. Put all of them together in one broadcast, and they’re practically guaranteed to go berserk.
Ima: Okay, well, then, what would you suggest?
Tom: To appeal to TEA Party enthusiasts, you need shows that are the complete antithesis of insightful, informative, intelligent and interesting – you know, like Car Talk. See? NPR did that, didn’t they? That proves it, right there. If you can do it once, you can do it a dozen times. So, how about one centered around the New World Order conspiracy? Call it The Black Helicopter Hour.
Ima: Black… helicopter… hour?
Tom: Or how about one with a guns-and-ammo theme? Call it The Second Amendment Show.
Ima: Guns? Ammo?
Tom: And those folks really hate taxes, even more than they love firearms. How about a show called Beat the IRS?
Ima: Uh… wouldn’t that make certain people in Washington upset with us?
Tom: Sure – it would also make a lot of other people in Washington love you. Eschatology – now there’s another good one – put together a show and call it Sign of the End Times or Armageddon Roundup or something like that.
Ima: A show about Armageddon?
Tom: Sure – and follow it up with another one about survivalism. Call it Farnham’s Freehold.
Ima: Who?
Tom: Believe me, they’ll know, even if you don’t. How about a show about white pride? Call it Caucasian Country. Or shows about UFOs, creation science or state’s rights?
Ima: Uh, Tom?
Tom: Yes?
Ima: Do you think you could talk Juan Williams into coming back instead?
Tom: No.
Ima: You’re sure?
Tom: Absolutely certain. He’s already told me it’s not going to happen.
Ima: Well, all right then, I’ll run some of those program ideas past upper management here at NPR. But what if they don’t go for it?
Tom: In that case, like I said, I suggest NPR make some videos of its own. Oops, gotta go. Cerise wants me to scrub her back.
Ima: Um, okay, sure, Tom. Thanks for the advice. Goodbye.